small town – Reading While Fat

Ready to Score

Ready to Score by Jodie Slaughter (publication day June 3, 2025) immersed me in southern high school football like I never expected in a sapphic romance! Jade Dunn, math teacher and first black woman assistant football coach in their small South Carolina town, has the feeling that the head coach is going to retire, andContinue reading “Ready to Score”

All the Sinners Bleed

All the Sinners Bleed (2023) by Anthony award-winning S.A. Cosby was a gripping, frightening mystery/ thriller set in rural, coastal Virginia featuring former FBI agent, and the county’s first Black sheriff, Titus Crown. Racial tensions are coming to a head, with local white people wanting to parade in support of a Confederate statue and TitusContinue reading “All the Sinners Bleed”

Demon Copperhead

I don’t know if I can say anything about the 2023 Pulitzer-winning Demon Copperhead (2022) by Barbara Kingsolver that hasn’t already been written. Just Google it for several excellent reviews. It’s a modern retelling of David Copperfield by Dickens. Although I have been a Kingsolver fan for many, many years, I was a little apprehensive,Continue reading “Demon Copperhead”

The River We Remember

I loved The River We Remember (2023) by William Kent Krueger, which was a selection for my library book group. I didn’t have any previous knowledge of the book or the author, but I devoured it after the last line of the prologue, which describes the story as how the channel catfish in the riverContinue reading “The River We Remember”

Starling House

Starling House (2023) is Alix E. Harrow’s newest fantasy, this time a contemporary gothic featuring a former coal-mining town in Kentucky and a fictional creepy children’s book called The Underland, written by an E. Starling. Harrow describes it as a “southern gothic beauty and the beast, sort of”. It was a Reese’s Book Club selection,Continue reading “Starling House”