Review by Carla Panciera Jane Ward’s fourth book, Should Have Told You Sooner, is both a journey novel and an exercise in time travel. As one of the novel’s youngest characters wisely observes: “‘We tend to think of life…
Browsing: Reviews
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Deborah Leipziger, Tell Me, Lily Poetry Review Books, February 2026, poetry Tell Me is a love letter to nature and to daughters, to the Beloved and to our future ancestors. These poems celebrate the…
Walking with Beth: Conversations with my hundred-year-old friend by Merilyn Simonds Review by Melanie McGehee Award-winning author Merilyn Simonds, writer of more than twenty books across genres, reached her seventieth birthday with a specific longing: she wanted a guide…
Unvarnished Animal: A Review of Shari Caplan’s Exhibitionist by Hannah Larrabee In her prize-winning collection, Shari Caplan opens with a poem invoking the incomparable Marina Abramović: Here is the gallery of my body. (…) You’re not supposed to chew…
Review by Emily Hall Nora Lange’s short-story collection, Day Care, is a piercing exploration of womanhood and fulfillment. The follow-up to her debut novel, Us Fools, the eighteen stories in this collection center on women who feel unsatisfied and…
Review by Suzette Bishop In Dear Letters in the Red Box by Sarah Stern, her fourth poetry book, poems lift off from story, memory, dream, everyday experiences, and a deceivingly plain-spoken language, shapeshifting into something ethereal. Reading through a…
Review by Susan Blumberg-Kason One of the most difficult parts of becoming a mother—even before a baby is born—is the worrying that never, ever lets up. There are worries during pregnancy that continue if and when the baby is…
Review by Sharon Tracey Both narrative and elegy, Preeti Vangani’s poetry collection Fifty Mothers explores grief and loss triggered by the death of her mother to breast cancer at age 41. With her passing, the poet and her father…
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Laurie D. Graham, Calling It Back to Me, McClelland & Stewart, March 2026, poetry In these searching, spare, and resonant poems, Laurie D. Graham traces the story of her great-grandmothers’ lives before and after…
Review by Lisa C. Taylor Momma May Be Mad is unlike any memoir I’ve previously read or reviewed. The opening of the memoir pulls the reader into the nonlinear hellscape of the author as she simultaneously battles anorexia, alcoholism,…