The books Southern indie booksellers are recommending to readers everywhere!

Women

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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The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman

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The Magic All Around by Moorman, Jennifer
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This book is a delight for both intellect and emotion. The characters are sensitive and believable. Family relationships resemble those in Practical Magic, but are more focused on understanding one’s place in life. Each individual has a specific purpose and intent… life happens the way it was intended (eventually). Highly recommend!

The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman, (List Price: $17.99, Harper Muse, 9781400240487, January 2024)

Reviewed by Liz Perkins, Blinking Owl Books in Fort Myers, Florida

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I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall

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I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall
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A beautiful punch in the gut like one from the mosh pit on a Saturday night. Mariah Stovall’s full-length debut sweeps her readers into the tender yet vicious embrace of teenage friendship and meditates on putting on your own life jacket before trying to help others. Stovall reveals connections and personal history slowly, moving between past, present, and future, all woven through with the heroes of post-hardcore, punk, and emo. This novel bears a re-read to untangle the ways that music and fiction intertwine.

I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both by Mariah Stovall, (List Price: $28, Soft Skull, 9781593767600, 2024-02-13)

Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

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The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
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Yes, this book is 790 pages. Yes, I thought that was more than a little daunting, but I’m so happy that I challenged my attention span and read this novel. Part coming-of-age story, part examination of racial injustice in higher education, part sweeping historical saga, and part family drama, The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois spans centuries yet somehow still feels so focused and pictorial. Apparently, Jeffers is an accomplished poet, and the language here definitely reflects that. I’m going to stop this blurb here because if I talk too much, I won’t be able to stop for 800 pages myself, but if you commit to this book, it won’t disappoint you.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du BoisThe Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, (List Price: $20, Harper Perennial, 9780062942951, May 2022)

Reviewed by Sam Edge, Epilogue: Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman

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The Magic All Around by Moorman, Jennifer
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Sometimes we just need a little magic like this! Mattie returns to the Russell family home for a brief stay at the sudden passing of her mom, Lilith. But Lilith’s will keeps Mattie in Ivy Ridge longer. In carrying out her mom’s wishes, Mattie and her aunt Penelope uncover secrets in the old Victorian house that unsettle them both and lead to new possibilities. I enjoyed this wonderful story of homecoming, family, and love!

The Magic All Around by Jennifer Moorman, (List Price: $17.99, Harper Muse, 9781400240487, January 2024)

Reviewed by Cathy Graham, Copperfish Books in Punta Gorda, Florida

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The Women by Kristin Hannah

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The Women by Kristin Hannah
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Yet another powerful book from Kristin Hannah. Like most of her novels, it not only taught me about a time period, it made me feel it. She somehow manages to make you feel like you have experienced an entire life, full of rich experiences with everything explored, without being a gigantic book. It’s truly a talent of hers. As a former history major that specifically studied this time period, I still learned a ton from this book. It’s kind of shocking how many fiction books we have about WWII and how little we have about Vietnam. I found myself making a list of non fiction books after to explore more about the women in Vietnam, who as this book beautifully points out, were horribly ignored. It is a story that both needed to be told and was a treat to read.

The Women by Kristin Hannah, (List Price: $30, St. Martin’s Press, 9781250178633, February 2024)

Reviewed by Kelley Dykes, Main Street Reads in Summerville, South Carolina

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The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

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The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
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In a world where one may travel 20 years into the future or 20 years into the past just to take a look at what happened/will happen, which would you choose? This is the world where The Other Valley exists. Would you go back to just see the face of a loved one no longer with you? Would you go forward to see the future? For readers of David Mitchell, Kazuo Ishiguro, this book has you asking yourself “what would I do?”. And what would you do if your job was to police the time trips of those who wished to visit the other Valleys? Great choice for book clubs!

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard, (List Price: $27.99, Atria Books, 9781668015476, February 2024)

Reviewed by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

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Holiday Country by Inci Atrek

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Holiday Country by Inci
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The coast of Turkey was the perfect backdrop for this tragic coming of age story. It was refreshing to see the older man/young woman trope from the young woman’s perspective as well as the complexities of growing up, finding one’s place, and cultivating relationships with the people around you. This was a refreshing look at an age old theme.

Holiday Country by Inci Atrek, (List Price: $28.99, , 9781250889461, January 2024)

Reviewed by Sara Putman, Bookish: An Indie Shop For Folks Who Read in Fort Smith, Arkansas

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Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark

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Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark
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In Happily, Mark spins magically surreal sketches of motherhood, art, and life. Woven from fairy tales refracted into reality, each essay shimmers with wit, candor, and whimsy. As sharp as a spindle, as ethereal as an eggshell—this gemlike collection of memoir-fables will leave you enchanted.

Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark, (List Price: $27, Random House, 9780593242476, March 2023)

Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera

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Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera
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A delicate coming-of-age story that is both elegiac and an ode to craftwork, womanhood, and friendship. Much like the characters in Cross-Stitch, Barrera and translator MacSweeny have yet again come together to craft another gift to treasure. One of my favorite reads of the year.

Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera, (List Price: $24, Two Lines Press, 9781949641530, November 2023)

Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

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Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

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Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
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Fates and Furies offers a sharp portrait of a modern marriage, an eminently flexible partnership, still full of dark corners and locked rooms. We follow first Lotto’s perspective and then Mathilde’s through the full arc of this for-better-or-worse, and the result is a dynamic and quick-footed novel, Lauren Groff at the height of her powers. Lotto and Mathilde’s physical connection is hot and brutal and sometimes strange. The echoes of Shakespearean tragedy, of mythology, even allegory give their relationship resonant heft, while the storyline keeps the dirt of real life under their nails. I really, really loved Mathilde: her sheer darkness and fierce love for Lotto, her deep flaws and careful veneer. She was sympathetic and awful and familiar and pragmatic and true. This book is smart—about women and wives, marriage and art—and beautiful, and going to be talked about for a long, long time.

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, (List Price: $18.00, Riverhead Books, 9781594634482, September 2015)

Reviewed by Ashley Warlick, M. Judson, Booksellers in Greenville, South Carolina

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The Farmer’s Wife by Helen Rebanks

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The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks
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Jointly, The Farmer’s Wife and The Shepherd’s Life (written by Helen’s husband James), provide a unique look at both the travails of small farm life and married life. On its own, The Farmer’s Wife reminded me of Laurie Colwin with deep insights into daily life and the joys of cooking good food. Thoughtful, challenging with delicious recipes and beautifully illustrated, this will be a go-to gift book for me.

The Farmer’s Wife by Helen Rebanks, (List Price: $29.99, Harper Horizon, 9780785290483, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jan Blodgett, Main Street Books in Davidson, North Carolina

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The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

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The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
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n immersive trip through Southern Gothic Early America. The narrative follows a lone girl down the Potomac River, from Jamestown and into the unknown. Nameless or many-named like a barn-cat drifter, Girl wields caution, imagination and a blade to survive the crystalline forests of Virginia and Maryland. She drafts off a peloton of memories–as the British orphan, the mistress’s servant, Bess’s friend, the glassblower’s lover—that pull her forward to eat dirt and vibe with a bear in the present. It’s all about the stories that keep us alive. Groff’s easy and percussive writing, along with her use of time, space and inner dialogue, create an immediacy that had me trying to locate Girl’s coordinates on a map so I wouldn’t lose her. Captivating. Awesome. Great.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593418390, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jackie Carlson, Tombolo Books in St Petersburg, Florida

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Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

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Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen
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This book was made for autumn. A community who clings to ghosts, unable to move on, stuck in their grief, comes together in such a lovely way with the introduction of a new resident. Revisiting this brought such a warmth to my heart, and is one I’ll keep in my back pocket for quiet days.

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen, (List Price: $18, St. Martin’s Griffin, 9781250019875, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jamie Kovacs, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

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The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
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A September 2023 Read This Next Book!

Full confession, I adore Lauren Groff, her writing and subject matter are exactly my cup of tea, so it is unlikely that I would not like this book. That said, I was a little skeptical, I kept turning the pages wondering when she was going to be rescued, live happily ever after with her Native husband? This is not that story. What this is, is an amazing meditation on what it means to be alive, to want to stay alive, and the big question, why do we live at all. What if everything you have learned about life in your time on earth is stripped away and you are left with a more beautiful and brutal understanding of God and the world? (I also love that she wrote a draft in iambic pentameter just for fun and to get into the rhythm of the language of the time, it makes my nerdy heart go pitter pat!). Thank you Lauren Groff for writing books for book lovers like me.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff, (List Price: 28, Riverhead Books, 9780593418390, September 2023)

Reviewed by Jessica Osborne from E. Shaver, bookseller in Savannah, GA

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