In a growing loneliness epidemic, ordinary kindness can still bloom. There is no easier time to be lonely. Still grappling with the aftermath of a global pandemic, society has undergone a paradigm shift that has proven difficult to reverse. Activities that once invited camaraderie and friendship are now performed largely alone, reshaped by convenience, caution, […]
The pole stands in the marsh at the end of a boardwalk, and on top of it is a nest built by the same pair of birds who come back to it every spring. The male arrives first and adds material. The female follows after a journey of several thousand miles, and he courts her […]
A six-year-old is under a school desk with her hands clamped over her ears. Decades later, the same woman is standing in an emergency department where an artificial scribe is finishing her sentences aloud, a hard drive is dying in the corner with a sound like a wasp, the overhead paging will not stop, and […]
A relentlessly sweet YA romance that’ll have you cheering for love JJ is a brilliant junior with her eyes on the prize of cheerleading nationals. Aang is an equally brilliant boy with his eye on the prize of winning Mathletes nationals and getting into Stanford. They’ve both been knocking on the guidance counselor’s door since […]
A worthy continuation of the Drifters Realm series that celebrates the power of standing together With HalLows Realm, AnneMarie Mazotti Gouveia broadens the world of her Drifters Realm series, transporting readers beyond the familiar magic of Obligations into a mysterious realm where ancient curses, living landscapes, and forgotten history reshape the characters’ understanding of themselves […]
From a third-floor window, a nineteen-year-old watches his hall of residence empty out for the summer. Parents arrive in small cars, tearful or embarrassed or both. The rugby captain is folded into a clergyman father’s Saab, wearing the face of a man being arrested. The New Age anarcho-collectivist becomes Nicola again and packs a Mini […]
Synopsis: In the sweltering summer of 1958, the Jim Crow South is a landscape defined by danger, secrecy, and the need to survive. A Cakewalk to Memphis, the debut novel by Charlotte-based author Brenda Wilson, follows Big Sallie Morning, a determined Black cleaning woman from Memphis who becomes caught up in a desperate search for […]