Book Reviews

Under the Sun: A Black Journalist’s Journey   By Harold Jackson   The University of Alabama Press, 2025   Paperback: $29.95  Genre: Memoir   Reviewed by C.G. Crawford      In Under the Sun: A Black Journalist's Journey, Harold Jackson offers a personal account of his life and hopeful legacy as one of America's last real newspapermen. As the printing press days of fact-based news, corporate newspaper politics, and news editorials die at the hands of the digital beast that is social media, artificial intelligence, podcasts, [...]

With Our Bellies Full and the Fire Dying   By Debra H. Goldstein  White City Press, 2025  Paperback: $13.00  Genre: Mystery, Short Fiction   Reviewed by Joe Cuhaj     Some of you may be too young to remember the days of pulp mystery magazines like Ellery Queen Mysteries, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mysteries, and Master Detective. Each month, these magazines brought readers the best short fiction mysteries by the world's best up-and-coming writers. Some remain to this day (now as online magazines like Ellery Queen), still [...]

Physicians for the People: Black Doctors and the Struggle for Health-Care Equality in Alabama, 1870-1970  By Jack D. Ellis  The University of Alabama Press, 2025  Reviewed by Stephen W. Russell, MD  Professor Jack D. Ellis’s fifth book, Physicians for the People: Black Doctors and the Struggle for Health-Care Equality in Alabama, 1870-1970, begins in Tuskegee. Fifty years before the unethical U.S. Public Health study that withheld treatment from 400 Black men with a treatable disease, the Tuskegee Institute represented a bright [...]

Killed by Death  By Matthew Weber  Pint Bottle Press; 2024  Paperback; 12.99  Genre: Fiction  Reviewed by Nelson Sims    Matthew Weber’s Killed by Death is a nasty little love letter to the kinds of horror stories that used to hide behind gas station comic racks and dare you to flip the page. It’s got the bite of Tales from the Crypt, the twang of the Deep South, and absolutely no intention of letting anyone walk away clean. Whether it’s the human [...]

Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror   By Jessica Jones  Negative Capability Press, 2024  Paperback: $16  Genre: Poetry  Reviewed by Eleanor Boudreau  The title of Jessica Jones’ new book, Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror, prefigures poems of both self-revelation and self-reflection. “Do you wanna see / my secret hiding spot?” the speaker asks in an early childhood poem. And, yes, of course we do! As the collection progresses, the speaker gets older, but she never loses her [...]

Doggone Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery   By Carolyn Haines   Minotaur Books, 2025   Hardcover: $28.00   Genre: Fiction/Mystery and Detective/Cozy   Reviewed by Lisa Harrison   Carolyn Haines fans have a thoughtful chew-treat of a tale in store in her new release, Doggone Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery. Taking center stage in this rollicking whodunit are Sweetie Pie and Chablis, the beloved canine companions of Southern sleuth extraordinaire Sarah Booth Delaney and her partner in the Delaney Detective agency, Tinkie Bellchase Richmond.      [...]

Beneath the Moon and Long Dead Stars By Daniel Wallace Bull City Press, 2025 Paperback: 13.95 Genre: Short Fiction, Flash Fiction Reviewed by Kent Quaney In his new collection of flash fiction, Beneath the Moon and Long Dead Stars, Alabama Writers Hall of Fame member Daniel Wallace evokes a sense of loneliness and smallness that leaves a deep and lasting impression of loss and longing. Each piece gives us an intimate and heartfelt view of its protagonist. Be it a story [...]

Eric and the Anti-Tankers  By Joe Taylor  Nat 1 Publishing, 2024  Paperback: $7.99  Genre: Dystopian Fiction, Satire  Reviewed by Suzanne Hudson   Full disclosure: Joe Taylor is one of my favorite publishers—and people—on the planet.  That said, I believe the synapses in Joe’s brain fire in dances of offbeat associations—one neuron to another—in a way unlike most human creatures. His imagination is otherworldly, “out there,” that whole “different drummer” vibe. This is not to convey madness, but maybe “mad scientist” (as he [...]

The Tears of Things  By Catherine Hamrick  Madville Publishing, 2025  Paperback: $19.95  Genre: Poetry  Reviewed by Jennifer Horne  Catherine Hamrick draws her book’s title from classical literature: a phrase in Homer’s Aeneid that, translated by Seamus Heaney, reads, “there are tears at the heart of things.” A more recent version of that sentiment occurs in the television show The Good Place, when the character Eleanor Shellstrop tells an immortal being horrified by the idea of death, “All humans are aware of [...]

The Witch’s Daughter by Orenda Fink Gallery Books, 2024 Paper: $28.99 Genre: Memoir Reviewed by Katharine Armbrester  A song can express seemingly inexpressible emotions, replete with yearning music and tidily wrapped up in three minutes. A powerful memoir can likewise provide a reader with the language needed to evaluate their own life and memories and give permission to say: “Wait, I was not the only one with this kind of childhood? And I have the right to write about it?” In [...]

The Filling Station   By Vanessa Miller  Thomas Nelson, 2025  Hardcover: $27.94, Paperback: $15.19  Genre: Historical fiction   Reviewed by Monique Jones  Two sisters’ lives are changed forever during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Vanessa Miller’s The Filling Station.   The main characters, Margaret and Evelyn Justice, sisters and daughters to an influential man in Greenwood, Tulsa’s prosperous Black district, have their lives torn apart once the massacre breaks out, leaving them without a home and in search of their father. They find [...]

Two-Step Devil  By Jamie Quatro  Grove Press; 2024  Hardcover: $27.00  Genre: Fiction  Reviewed by Edward Journey  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” That verse from Hebrews 11 became a refrain in my mind while reading Jamie Quatro’s metafiction novel, Two-Step Devil. A stream-of-consciousness passage of a troubled young girl’s travel brought Faulkner to mind. And a Christian theological discussion in play-form in what is essentially the “third act” of the novel made [...]

Heroes and Other Mortals: Stories of Our Better Angels  By Frye Gaillard  Foreword by Cynthia Tucker  NewSouth Books, 2025  Paperback: $29.95  Genre: Nonfiction Essays, History   Reviewed by Patricia Foster   What often calms my psyche in this troubled period of the American story is to sit quietly in my room on a comfortable sofa and read a book. Luckily, there is a new book by 2025 Alabama Writers Hall of Fame inductee Frye Gaillard – Heroes and Other Mortals: Stories of Our [...]

The Mystery of the Crooked Man  By Tom Spencer  Pushkin Vertigo, 2025  Paperback: $18.95  Genre: Mystery   Reviewed by Joe Cuhaj     Tom Spencer’s new book, The Mystery of the Crooked Man, is not your typical cozy mystery. It straddles the fine line between the cozy genre and the dark side of traditional mysteries brilliantly, a balancing act that makes this a read you can’t put down.  Our sleuth, Agatha Dorn, is an archivist extraordinaire. Or at least that is how she fancies [...]

A War of Sections: How Deep South Political Suppression Shaped Voting Rights in America  By Steve Suitts  NewSouth Books, an imprint of the University of Georgia Press, 2024  Hardcover: $120.95; Paperback: $36.95; eBook: $36.95  Genre: Alabama History  Reviewed by Edward Journey  In the early 2000s, I heard an interview with the U.S. Congressman from the Seventh District of Alabama, representing Alabama’s Black Belt. According to this congressman, if Alabama’s Black Belt counties were removed from the statistical data, Alabama would rank [...]

Untethered  By Angela Jackson-Brown  Harper Muse, 2024  Paper: $18.99  Genre: Historical Fiction  Reviewed by Charlotte C. Teague  The word tether is defined as “to tie or restrict.” As is Katia Daniels, who is tied to behaviors and expectations of herself and others that are restricting her from living her best life. Tackling themes connected to womanhood and the complexities of personal and family tensions, Alabama author Angela Jackson-Brown gives readers a protagonist in her newest novel, Untethered, struggling to break free [...]

Everything is Tuberculosis  By John Green   Crash Course Books, 2025  Hardcover: $28.00  Genre: Nonfiction, Science & Technology Reviewed by Stephen W. Russell, MD   On a pre-pandemic visit to a hospital in Sierra Lone, a bright-eyed boy named Henry gave novelist John Green a tour through the facility, an experience that would change the course of his writing career. “My son Henry was nine then,” Green wrote, “and this Henry looked about the same age.” But this Henry wasn’t nine. He was [...]

Stubby’s War  By Diane R. Weber    Pint Bottle Press, 2023   Paperback: $10.99   Genre: Children’s Middle Grade  Review by Emma C. Fox  How does an orphaned mutt become one of the most famous dogs in history? Mostly, as Diane R. Weber shows, by loyally serving his comrades and doing the next right thing.  In Stubby's War, a wonderful book for middle-grade readers on up, Weber chronicles the adventures of the brave, beloved pit bull terrier who fought alongside his human companions in [...]

More Poems for Hungry Minds  By Highland Avenue Poets  Edited by Steve Coleman  Highland Avenue Poets Publishing, 2024  Paperback: $11.95  Genre: Poetry  Reviewed by Foster Dickson  My first thought on seeing the cover of More Poems for Hungry Minds was that this was a follow-up to an earlier publication. My hunch was correct. Here, the Highland Avenue Poets in Birmingham offer a third anthology from the group’s members, the second being Poems for Hungry Minds. This collection opens with a preface [...]

Villages  By Robert Inman  Livingston Press, 2025  Trade Paper: $19.95  Genre: Fiction   Reviewed by Frye Gaillard  In this taut and beautifully crafted novel, Alabama native Robert Inman weaves a tale of surprises and secrets in a small Southern town, revealed by the homecoming of 21-year-old Jonas Boulware from the terrors of war in Afghanistan.   Jonas suffers from PTSD, having returned to the familiar confines of Copernicus, a rural village where he now feels both welcome and estranged. As his story unfolds, [...]

The Tensaw River: Alabama’s Hidden Heritage Corridor  By Mike Bunn  Series: Alabama: The Forge of History  University of Alabama Press, 2024  Paper: $24.95  Genre: Nonfiction, Natural History, History   Reviewed by Bill Plott  Alabama: The Forge of History is a University of Alabama Press richly illustrated series of guidebooks to some of Alabama’s premier historical sites. Previous releases have featured such diverse topics as Moundville, Birmingham’s iron and steel industry, and Civil Rights heritage. Lavishly illustrated with more than 40 historical maps [...]

Deep Water, Dark Horizons  By Suzanne Hudson  Livingston Press, 2025  Paperback: $22.00  Genre: Short Fiction, Essays  Reviewed by Edward Journey  Sometimes, the stories in Deep Water, Dark Horizons, Suzanne Hudson’s “Truman Capote collection” of stories and essays, take place in raked dirt front yards and sleazy dive bar parking lots, probing the lower depths of desperation. Occasionally, the setting might be the well-appointed home of a social striver. In these somehow familiar stories, strivers are everywhere, each clawing, often recklessly, to [...]

Bent but Not Broken  By Mary Monroe  Dafina, 2025  Paperback: $28.00  Genre: Historical Fiction  Reviewed by Charlotte C. Teague  With Bent but Not Broken, New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe has produced another intriguing work of fiction set in rural Alabama in the early 1900s. Tackling themes of domestic violence, racism, infidelity, and religious hypocrisy, Monroe crafts a plot full of deception, tragedy, and murder against a backdrop of the Great Depression. This is Monroe’s fifth book in the Lexington, [...]

We Don’t Push in Fairhope  By Leslie Anne Tarabella  Liberty Blue Press, 2024  Hardcover: $29.99  Genre: Nonfiction, Travel   Reviewed by Suzanne Hudson  If election season left you pessimistic and deflated by so much snark, name-calling, us-against-them angst, and mean spiritedness; if seemingly hopeless division has you considering anti-depressants—or maybe even electroshock therapy; if you have the urge to put your fingers in your ears to “la-la-la-la-la-la” away all the noise, then look no further than Leslie Anne Tarabella’s delightfully Southern-Comforty confection [...]