To Have and Have More (2025) Sanibel "A thought-provoking and engrossing insider look at wealth, friendship, and racism, both micro and macro. I devoured every delicious word."
Crush (2025) Ada Calhoun "I didn't just read Crush; I inhaled it like it would save my life. Calhoun captures the chaotic experience of a marriage's dissolution and a new midlife romance with the insight and humor she brings to all her work. I loved this book. And I loved its honest depiction of what love can do to and for us."
The Singer Sisters (2024) Sarah Seltzer "I devoured Sarah Seltzer's debut novel The Singer Sisters as it swung between the 1960s folk scene and the 1990s alt rock scene. Seltzer spins a profound web, showing the complex intergenerational push and pull between mothers, daughters, sisters. Long kept secrets are revealed through songs and albums and mysterious strangers."
Alice Sadie Celine (2023) Sarah Blakley-Cartwright "Like Didion but with more warmth and a queer sensibility, Alice Sadie Celine is packed with so much of what I love in a book: tight prose, smart, fully realized characters grappling with inappropriate love affairs, and bright California land and light. It's extraordinarily lovely and I savored every word and didn't want it to end."
Trouble the Water (2018) Jacqueline Friedland "Friedland is a modern Bronte sister remixed with Kathleen Grissom or Leila Meacham. Trouble the Water is the riveting story of Abby, who travels across the sea, fleeing Liverpool, poverty, and an unsavory uncle, for Charleston, where a wealthy friend of her father, Douglas, lives. Douglas has pledged himself to the fight to end slavery, and for that, he has made the ultimate sacrifice. Abby fights inner demons and tries to find her place in Charleston high society while her brooding guardian reconciles the past and returns to his beloved cause. Lovers of Civil War-era historical fiction will rejoice at Friedland's triumphant novel of love, friendship, and the most important issues of the day."
Hotel Silence (2018) Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir "Jónas Ebeneser leaves his home in Iceland for a city thousands of miles away pummeled by war and violence, now at tentative peace. He brings with him only his toolbox, scars, and grief. While he plans his suicide, the people of the town draw him out with their endless list of broken items to be fixed. With humor and simple, heart-piercing prose, Hotel Silence tells the story of a man and his past, and the community where he finds himself. Ólafsdóttir’s world is full of surprise, sadness, love, and transformation. I didn’t want it to end."
