The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Family Life

Spotlight On: Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

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P Djeli Clark, photo credit the author

This story was absolute FUN to write. Yes, I have fun writing all my stories. Readers can see it in the humor I imbue in those tales, even when the topics are serious. But there was a different kind of freedom with The Dead Cat Tail Assassins. I wasn’t bound to our world. Or our histories. I wasn’t trying to deliver some deeper message on real-life colonialism or racism or the like. I set out to just tell a story that was fast-paced, punchy, full of action, thrills, and, when called-for, sheer hilarity. As I pitched it to my editor, this is John Wick meets Dungeons & Dragons.

― P. Djèlí Clark, Disgruntled Haradrim

Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

What booksellers are saying about Dead Cat Tail Assassins

  • Clark has a way of drawing you in immediately to his elaborately created and detailed worlds of magic and mystery. You’re immediately thrown into a city in the midst of festival revelry where an incredibly deadly (and also dead) group of assassins are on the prowl. I love how Clark can make you feel so much empathy and compassion for an assassin; how his stories revolve around a code of ethics. Really well done and a lot of fun!
      ― Jamie Southern, Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, North Carolina | BUY

  • First of all, you have to love a god that’s the patron of both assassins and chefs. This is another banger from Clark. So much vicious fun. Highly recommended!
      ― Robin Wood, Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida | BUY

  • A bloody romp of a good time—The Dead Cat Tails Assassins has the world-building of an epic without the overwhelming page count. It’s one of the most vivid and engrossing fantasies I’ve read in years. Absolutely not to be missed.
      ― Courtney Ulrich Smith, Underbrush Books in Rogers, Arkansas | BUY

  • The Dead Cat Tail Assassins leads you astray, trips your feet out from under you, and then dunks your head underwater, all in the span of one night. This novella is an action-packed romp through a gloriously rich and well-defined world. Clark crafts a succinct and enthralling story that carries you through till the last page, offering a wide cast of vivid characters (mostly assassins) who capture your attention and your heart. On top of all of that there lies a time paradox to challenge and twist your perception of the world itself.
      ― Faith Skowronnek, Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina | BUY

About P. Djèlí Clark

Born in New York and raised mostly in Houston, P. Djèlí Clark spent the formative years of his life in the homeland of his parents, Trinidad and Tobago. He is the author of the novel A Master of Djinn and the novellas The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums, and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. He has won the Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards and been nominated for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon Awards. His stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Daily Science Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Apex, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies, including Griots, Hidden Youth, and Clockwork Cairo. He is also a founding member of FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction and an infrequent reviewer at Strange Horizons.

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Spotlight On: Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

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Alisa Alering, photo credit Lance Thorn

It’s too easy to equate character strength with physical power. So what is strength? What does it mean to be truly tough? Is suffering what makes you strong? Is continuing to persist, to exist on your terms in the face of overwhelming opposition or little hope of change—is that strength? (Recently, reading K.X. Song’s novel An Echo In the City about the 2019 Hong Kong protests I was impressed with the characters’ repeated acknowledgment that they knew they couldn’t win and yet that was no reason to stop fighting). Is strength merely preserving some core kernel of your true self deep down when all the world tells you that what you are, what you believe, what you feel is not right, not okay, not even real? Does that internal personal act of truth and private rebellion equate with strength? Is real strength the ability to ask for what you want and keep asking? Is it the ability to make hard choices in the face of disappointment or compromise?

― Alisa Alering, Interview, We Are Grimoire

Smothermoss by Alisa Alering

What booksellers are saying about Smothermoss

  • Alering thrills and excites with Smothermoss, the story of two sisters navigating adolescence and dark forces in the Appalachian mountains. Sprinkled with magic and charm, this lush adventure through the wilderness had me ensnared from the very first page..
      ― Alea Lopes, Oxford Exchange in Tampa, Florida | BUY

  • A hauntingly eerie tale about two sisters, Shelia and Angie, set in the 1980s Appalachia. When two hikers turn up brutally murdered, Shelia and Angie get roped into hunting the killer. The imagery in this novel was so raw and creepy. I haven’t looked at rabbits the same since finishing this book. Angie draws creepy tarot cards with images you would see in your worst nightmare. This is a weird novel but a fun one, trust me!
      ― Anna Anabseh, Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia | BUY

  • I loved almost everything about this book: the imagery, the writing, the characters, and the magical “reality”. I can’t wait to see what this author writes next!
      ― Alexandra Bender, Fonts Books in McLeann, Virginia | BUY

  • A creeping mystery and a building sense of dread run through this story of self discovery. Smothermoss delivers absorbing imagery, troubling questions, and no easy answers, but but reminds the reader that life goes on regardless, and while there’s life, there’s hope.
      ― Arthur Acton, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina | BUY

  • A lyrically beautiful Southern Gothic story set in the Appalachian mountains, Smothermoss is an edge-of-your-seat yet gorgeous read. Two very different sisters exist in communion with the flora and fauna where the mountain plays a pivotal role. Both Sheila and Angie are trying to figure out their place in the world as kids in the 1980s. When a double murder in their small community put everyone on high alert, Angie is certain she can catch the killer. Smothermoss reads like a fairy tale with thrilling moments that could lead to devastation. Highly recommend.
      ― Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY

About Alisa Alering

Alisa Alering grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. After attending Clarion West, their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.

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All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

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All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky
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One of my favorites from the Tombolo Books Book Club this year! Ruth Madievsky’s debut is a buzzing bar sign of a book, telling the story of a young woman and her toxic relationship with her older sister Debbie in Los Angeles. After Debbie goes missing, our narrator has to decide whether to let her go and become her own person – or to stay mired in their fraught dynamic and the substances that kept them bound together. This book just felt like (cruel) summer to me – a hot, hazy fog of a book that I still think about.

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky, (List Price: $17.95, Catapult, 9781646222254, July 2024)

Reviewed by Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida

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Sandwich by Catherine Newman

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Sandwich by Catherine Newman
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In some light, this a sandy-toed frolic of a family’s week at the beach; in others, it’s a turbulent accounting of the family’s lifetime of joys and sorrows. Anyone with a family beach tradition will relate. Actually, anyone with a family will relate. Newman deftly sandwiches comedy and tragedy between the sweet pastels of the book’s summery covers. A deceptively powerful book!

Sandwich by Catherine Newman, (List Price: $26.99, Harper, 9780063345164, June 2024)

Reviewed by Frank Reiss, A Cappella Books in Atlanta, Georgia

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Spotlight On: Shae by Mesha Maren

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Mesha Maren, photo courtesy the author

For my generation, your coming out story was huge. Right, like when did you come out and how did it go?, and I’m sure that’s still a part of many people’s narratives, but I do have the feeling that things have shifted. The fluidity of both Cam and Shae’s sexuality and the conversations or sometimes lack of conversations around it felt very real to my sister in terms of the conversations she has had with her teenagers, and I was glad that came across as being real.

― Mesha Maren, Southern Review of Books

Shae by Mesha Maren

What booksellers are saying about Shae

  • What a gorgeous gut punch of a book! Maren has outdone herself with her third novel; I was in love from the first page. In an almost epistolary style, Shae takes us through her history with Cam – from friend to lover to – something else – in small-town Appalachia. Hints drop to show us that things go south fast even as Cam and Shae experience the rush of first love. I could tell things wouldn’t end well from the start but I couldn’t put it down until I knew what happened to Shae, Cam, and Eva. Maren’s prose will break your heart even while you stop to soak in its beauty. Readers of Karen Tucker’s Bewilderness will love this story of being young, queer, and addicted with no way out. Do not miss this book.
      ― Andrea Richardson, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY

  • Mesha Maren is a haunting writer, and I’ve long been a fan of the way she captures the changing face of the South in her pages. Shae was impossible to put down, impossible to forget.
      ― Ashley Warlick, M Judson, Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina | BUY

  • How does someone end up falling down the whole of opioid abuse? In this tender-hearted and revealing novel by the acclaimed author of Sugar Run, she compassionately explores addiction, poverty, isolation, queerness, and family in a riveting tale that embraces complex and sometimes tragic characters with open arms.
      ― Seth Tucker, Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky | BUY

About Mesha Maren

Mesha Maren is the author of the novels Sugar Run and Perpetual West (Algonquin Books). Her short stories and essays can be read in Tin House, The Oxford American, The Guardian, Crazyhorse, Triquarterly, The Southern Review, Ecotone, Sou’wester, Hobart, Forty Stories: New Writing from Harper Perennial, and elsewhere. She was the recipient of the 2015 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, a 2014 Elizabeth George Foundation grant, an Appalachian Writing Fellowship from Lincoln Memorial University, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Ucross Foundation. She was the 2018-2019 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Duke University.

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April May June July by Alison B. Hart

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April May June July by Alison B. Hart
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I have never read a book quite like this. This close family of six is like any other family until tragedy strikes when their father disappears in the Middle East with no trace. So many times, tragedy can rip a family apart, and so this family comes apart. The CIA gets involved, and people are actively trying to find their beloved father, but time passes and he is not found. Years later one of the daughters is getting married and wants her family involved. Her mom tries to help out to no avail. Life has taken each of the four siblings on a ride, and they are caught up in their own drama. What will unravel the negativity they have for each other? Is their dad alive? How can they go on without knowing? This thriller is like no other I have ever read. You will love it.

April May June July by Alison B. Hart, (List Price: $28.99, Graydon House, 9781525804274, May 2024)

Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

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The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau

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The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau
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A lovely book about a woman leaning to find herself after losing her moorings in motherhood and marriage. This book is good. The suggestions of Greek Myth woven into the story are interesting but the story is much more about the marriage and motherhood than it is about Goddess and Greek Myth. The selected sources in the back are of great interest to anyone interested in those subjects and the story stands strong on its own as one woman reckoning with her choices in the past and every day.

The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau, (List Price: 29, Pantheon, 9780593700792, May 2024)

Reviewed by Kimberly Daniels, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina

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Spotlight On: Worry by Alexandra Tanner

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Alexandra Tanner | Photo by Sasha Fletcher

When you have a sibling, you can have a relationship with almost no boundaries. You can say anything to me; I can say anything to you, and because we’re bound by all of these things—the structure of our family, the understanding we have of one another’s issues, the love we have for each other; we’re always going to be connected. At the same time, it’s a delusion to think that you know a person so entirely because you grew up together—because you have the same parents; because you were raised in the same way. Every person has secrets. Everyone has a complete internal world that you know nothing about.

― Alexandra Tanner, The Columbia Journal

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

What booksellers are saying about Worry

  • Do I love to hate these characters, or hate that I love them? Worry is so funny, and also so bleak – Girls meets Shiva Baby meets Curb Your Enthusiasm if Larry David used organic tampons and worked for an astrology app start-up. These two sisters who find themselves in close quarters and under a specifically 2019-style emotional duress made me laugh and appreciate my own (mostly) functional family. Shoutout to Helen Glaser, this audiobook’s narrator, for absolutely committing to the bit!
      ― Rachel Knox, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg, Florida | BUY

  • I loved this! For fans of Halle Butler and Elif Batuman, if you love slice of life and “no plot just vibes” reads, add this one to your list. This book is at its best with its dialogue. You will see yourself in both of its main characters as they fluctuate between being vulnerable and caring for each other and then switching to subtle insults and manipulative power plays.
      ― Maddie Grimes, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee | BUY

  • Worry is brilliant. Jules and Poppy’s characters could be your sister, your friend, or even, you. The storyline time placement is genius. All Jules and Poppy appear to want is to move their lives forward – together and apart. But with setting this story a year before the pandemic, the reader knows it really doesn’t matter what they are planning. The family dynamics is pure chaos. The struggle with mother-daughter-sister relationships felt true and unbelievable at the same time. I felt so many emotions during the interactions between Jules and Poppy, Poppy and Mom, and Jules and Mom that I’m officially on Team Poppy. Tanner’s writing style is direct and doesn’t linger, which felt natural and relatable the entire time. (Not recommended for readers who need a plot device to move the story forward.)
      ― Jenny Gilroy, E. Shaver, Bookseller inSavannah, Georgia | BUY

  • Start with a large portion of sibling rivalry, add in anxiety, internet theories, a set of codependent parents and you have Alexandra Tanner’s debut novel, Worry. Sisters, Jules and Poppy, become antagonistic roommates when Poppy unexpectedly moves in to job hunt in Brooklyn. Set in 2019, the sisters plow through both the job and relationship markets always looking for the golden ticket of fulfillment. Tanner rounds out the family with a three-legged dog named for a failed Presidential candidate and Jewish parents living in Florida who are only too happy to share advice. Worry is full of dark humor and sarcasm that will leave you laughing as you wonder if you would have been half as good as Jules and Poppy at navigating life’s worries.
      ― Mary Jane Michels, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina | BUY

About Alexandra Tanner

Alexandra Tanner is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School and a recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, The Center for Fiction, and Spruceton Inn’s Artist Residency. Her stories, essays, and reviews appear or are forthcoming in Granta, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Baffler, The New York Times Book Review, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Worry is her first novel.

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin

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Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin
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I read Crow Talk very slowly not wanting the words to ever end. Between the beauty of Beauty Bay and the cozy caretaker cottage and the facts about birds and especially crows, the story of Frankie was a touching tale of nature and love. Frankie has suffered a set back with her dissertation on spotted owls and sadly doesn’t know what to do next except escape to her family’s old summer home on the bay. Every page glows with the breathtaking view of the natural world and when Frankie rescues a young crow, the healing begins for Frankie and the neighbor Anne with her son Aiden. Besides the wonder of nature, this story dwells on family and healing and love and will be remembered by all who luckily read these words.

Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin, (List Price: $28, Dutton, 9780593473887, April 2024)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser in Marietta, Georgia

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Spotlight On: Real Americans by Rachel Khong

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Rachel Khong, photo by Andria Lo

I know I was technically an adult when I wrote my first book, but Real Americans feels, to me, like the first book I’ve written as an adult. What I mean is that I worked at it diligently and devotedly. It felt more like a marriage—something I committed to, that I worked at—whereas Goodbye, Vitamin felt like flings, stolen moments. Even when I was at my busiest I made sure to carve out an hour in the mornings to write. On mornings I did the opening shift at The Ruby, I would make the communal pot of coffee, then place myself in the “podcast room” (this tiny dark closet hung with egg cartons and moving blankets) and write. For the first couple years, I only had those daily hours. And in the last years of writing the book it required more: three to four hours, artist residencies. I mean that in the best way, though. I got married a few months before Goodbye, Vitamin was released, and I think I learned a lot about writing a novel by being in my committed relationship. To both marriage and novel writing, there are challenges, annoyances and frustrations, but also really deep satisfaction, joy, belonging, intimacy, transcendence.

― Rachel Khong, The Rumpus

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

What booksellers are saying about Real Americans

  • Rachel Khong has spun a tender and intimate multigenerational family portrait that’s simultaneously a trenchant commentary on the contemporary faces of manifest destiny and the American dream. Real Americans plays with language in delightful and provocative ways, with its multiple narrators unknowingly echoing each other, skipping back and forth through time, and at times swapping between first and second person. The result is a gorgeous novel that hits the reader in so many different ways, one of those rare books that makes you think as much as it makes you feel.
      ― Akil Guruparan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY

  • Basically I opened Rachel Khong’s Real Americans on a Friday afternoon and was annoyed with every distraction–feeding my baby, answering emails, sleeping!–until I closed it, finished, the following Sunday night. What do I love in a novel? Fascinating research, intergenerational conflict/questions/challenges, surprising plot twists, and exquisitely developed characters. Real Americans has it all.
      ― Laura Cotten, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY

  • There are moments in life when choices must be made and most make decisions to the best of their ability. Rachel Khong’s highly anticipated Real Americans tells the story of three generations whose crucial choices, made out of love and best intentions chart courses that are life-changing and at times hurtful. At once a cautionary tale on potential genetic editing as well as a grand family story contemplating what it means to truly be American, Real Americans is filled with characters who are almost too brave who deny their truth to protect others.
      ― Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY

  • What initially appears to be a modern-day fairytale – Chinese-American girl meets rich white boy and falls in love – quickly becomes so much more in this nuanced, multi-generational family saga. Spanning more than 60 years and two continents, and told from three distinctive viewpoints, Real Americans is a powerful novel that raises questions about wealth, ambition, love, genetic engineering, and to what extent it’s possible to shape someone else to be who you want them to be.
      ― Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi | BUY

About Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She lives in California.

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The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

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The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
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A wonderful romp of a debut novel. Lauren’s search for “the right man” becomes hilarious drama when she discovers her attic has the magical ability to spit out one “husband” after another for her to “try on.” She sends one man after another back up the attic stairs, hoping the next one will be that “perfect man.” Every page is both fun and funny and the suspense for how she’ll finalize things will keep you reading.

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, (List Price: $29, Doubleday, 9780385550611, April 2024)

Reviewed by Patience Allan-Glick, Underground Books and Hills & Hamlets Bookshop in Carrollton, Georgia

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Wedding Issues by Elle Evans

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Wedding Issues by Elle Evans
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Laugh out-loud funny book just in time for wedding season. This book engages family, friends, the wedding industry, and a fast-paced plot perfect for the beach. I gave this to my future daughter-in-law, hoping she can find the fun in the planning. A must-read for any bride.

Wedding Issues by Elle Evans, (List Price: $17.99, Zibby Books, 9781958506745, April 2024)

Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

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Spotlight On: When the Jessamine Grows by Donna Everhart

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Donna Everhart, photo credit Maranda Walsh Photography

I set the story during a very familiar timeframe, that of the Civil War, but I feel like it is uniquley different from any other Civil War story.. For one thing, Joetta McBride and her husband Ennis live in Nash County, North Carolina, They are substinance farmers or “yeoman” farmers. That is where you grow your own food to feed yourself and your livestock. Yeoman farmers made up 65% of the population of North Carolina at that time. They did not own slaves, they were neutral and didn’t want anything to do with the war. The other thing about this book that makes it uniquely different is that it’s not about the War. Instead, I write about the families who are left behind women like Joetta McBride, who are required and compelled to keep food on the table, keep the farms running, keep their families together. The American Iraqi activist Zainab Salbi says if we are to understand War then we need to understand not not only what happens on the front lines but what happens on the back lines as well, where women are in charge of keeping the family going. And that is the essence of what this book is about.
― Donna Everhart, at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe

When the Jessamine Grows by Donna Everhart

What booksellers are saying about When the Jessamine Grows

  • Good book! The Confederacy has been on my mind often recently, as there a monument near our bookstore when I bought it three years ago; my store was boycotted during the pandemic when a few folks on the internet determined I was a supporter of it’s removal from our town square, so I could relate to this character’s struggle to remain true to her values while worrying about survival. I hope this book will give many readers new insight into the complexities of Southern women’s existence during the Civil War. Little was recorded for posterity regarding those who did not support the Confederacy’s position on slavery, yet many people did live in the South who did not believe in secession – with some losing their lives to maintain their moral codes; this book helps shed some light on those important stories, which deserve telling.
      ― Alissa Redmond, South Main Book Company in Salisbury, North Carolina | BUY

  • Historical fiction at its absolute best! Everhart’s carefully crafted female protagonist shows strength, courage and resolve in the face of the many cruelties of the Civil War. Joetta McBride is not your usual demure Southern Belle. She refuses to take sides in a conflict she feels has nothing to do with her family, while her oldest son is eager to fight for the Southern cause. Once her son flees to fight for the Confederacy, Joetta’s husband also gets caught up in the fight while searching for their son leaving Joetta to care for the farm and remaining family on her own. Facing isolation and destruction from the townspeople for offering water to a Union soldier, Joetta deals with grief, starvation and ruin with grace and grit. Even though she could face dire consequences, she still shows compassion to a young Union soldier who is on the verge of death. Everhart has created a new hero with the unflinching, steadfast and ever-courageous Joetta McBride!
      ― Sharon Davis, Book Bound Bookstore in Blairsville, Georgia | BUY

  • Lovers of historical fiction will devour this Civil War-era story that takes place in North Carolina. When everyone is taking sides in the war, Joetta McBride and her husband choose to stay neutral, but when their oldest son leaves against their wishes to join the Confederacy, they are forced to get involved. Joetta is left to run their farm and house while Ennis goes off to hopefully find and bring back their 15-year-old son. Readers will love Joetta’s strong convictions and determination to keep things afloat in the midst of war and upheaval. A great read!
      ― Mary Patterson, The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, Virginia | BUY

About Donna Everhart

Donna Everhart is a USA Today bestselling author known for vividly evoking the challenges of the heart and the complex heritage of the American South in her acclaimed novels When the Jessamine Grows, The Saints of Swallow Hill, The Moonshiner’s Daughter, The Forgiving Kind, The Road to Bittersweet, and The Education of Dixie Dupree. She is the recipient of the prestigious SELA Outstanding Southeastern Author Award from the Southeastern Library Association and her novels have received a SIBA Okra Pick, an Indie Next Pick, and two Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selections. Born and raised in Raleigh, she has stayed close to her hometown for much of her life and now lives just an hour away in Dunn, North Carolina.

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The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn

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The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn
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This is a poignant about family and all the ways those closest to you can do the most harm. Jess knows her mother for who she is, a woman who deserted her family for a con artist recently met. One so infamous he is the subject of a popular podcast. Jess has first-hand experience with her Mother’s priorities and knows her daughters are low on the list. What Jess doesn’t know is that her sister Tegan, whom she has raised, is determined to find their Mother. So much so that she has been communicating with a podcast host who wants to tell the story. By the ways Tegan has been communicating as Jess, an adult. The pressure to keep Tegan safe and not destroy their relationship is a desperate struggle for a “surrogate Mother” who is really just a sister. An obnoxious and pushy podcast host is not a benefit to Jess, nor the host’s handsome and kind assistant. This is a sweet story of finding family through love.

The Other Side of DisappearingThe Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn, (List Price: $17.95, Kensington, 9781496737311, March 2024)

Reviewed by Jackie Willey, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina

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After Annie by Anna Quindlen

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After Annie by Quindlen, Anna
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Anna Quindlen doesn’t shy away from writing about difficult emotional topics, and After Annie is no exception. After Annie dies suddenly, her husband, daughter, and lifelong best friend struggle to figure out how to manage without her. Heartfelt, beautiful, and moving, Quindlen has created a beautiful story of loss and connection.

After Annie by Quindlen, Anna, (List Price: $30, Random House, 9780593229804, February 2024)

Reviewed by Lynne Phillips, Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, Arkansas

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