Appearently summer is over this week (though you wouldn't know it here...) and as we're going into fall (or post-summer in this part of FL) I'd like to take a quick look back at the "wow" books from the past few months. Unlike last year, where I was gobbling up debuts like it was nobody's business, I've been shying away from contemporary literature lately in light of the fact that I'm deep in my hobbit hole of writing. It's that whole Anxiety of Influence thing... I've been absorbed in research and classics, but a few of today's hot up-and-coming writers managed to break their way through and conquer my heart. If you haven't bought and read these gems already... hop to it!



Brian Panowich's Bull Mountain.

"Bull Mountain has everything you would want in this genre: outlaws, grit, violence and filial loyalties being smashed together and pulled apart, all with a literary grace that is both natural and surprising."




The Suicide of Claire Bishop by Carmiel Banasky

"I’ll just go ahead and say it now- Carmiel Banasky’s physiological tour de force The Suicide of Claire Bishop is going to be one of THOSE books. You know, one of the novels that everyone is talking about this fall."



Bud Smith's F 250

"Many a novel has tried to walk the line Smith takes here and the story ends only in hipster posturing and pretention. Without a doubt, Bud Smith’s F 250 is the real deal."


Then there's also the books that I was lucky enough to obtain an advance copy of. Be on the lookout for these beauties in the coming months....


Fallen Land by Taylor Brown- January, 2016



Eric Shonkwiler's Moon Up, Past Full- October, 2015



God in Neon by Sam Slaughter- Winter, 2015


And then there's a few other books that dazzled me this summer- just in case you were interested...


A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra


 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh


Simon Mawer's The Glass Room


Happy Reading!!!