Using the idiom of the time and place–a small, close-knit, East Tennessee community as the Depression yields to World War II–the story follows the struggles of Maizee Hurd as she suffers through a series of setbacks from childhood on: the gruesome early death of her mother; her father’s rejection; the […]
Read MoreCultural/Regional
Jaws of Life, Laura Leigh Morris
In the hills of north central West Virginia, there lives a cast of characters who face all manner of problems. From the people who are incarcerated in West Virginia’s prisons, to a woman who is learning how to lose her sight with grace, to another who sorely regrets selling her […]
Read MoreWaste Tide, Chen Qiufan
Chen tells me he saw “a huge garbage field” in which migrant workers “are using their hands to break down the pieces of electronic devices, putting them on heat to melt the metals, or putting them in acid pools to dissemble the elements.” It is, he says, an environment of […]
Read MoreTentacle, Rita Indiana
Rita Indiana’s Tentacle (originally published in Spanish as La mucama de Omicunlé) is a speculative text that has as much to say about the future as it does about the present. While the novel is set in the Dominican Republic in the year 2037, it is as much a commentary on the […]
Read MoreHawk, Jennifer Dance
See our global eco-fiction spotlight on Jennifer Dance’s White Feather collection at Dragonfly.eco. Hawk, a First Nations teen from northern Alberta, is a cross-country runner who aims to win gold in an upcoming competition between all the schools in Fort McMurray. But when Hawk discovers he has leukemia, his identity […]
Read MoreUndergrowth, Nancy Burke
In this luminous novel, the all-too-human experiences of fear, love and loss become amplified with potentially disastrous consequences. In 1960s Brazil, an indigenous group is on the brink of a tragedy, the dimensions of which they are only beginning to grasp. A small band of disaffected government agents, academics and […]
Read MoreMoon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon […]
Read MoreThe Same River, Lisa Reddick
Ever since a childhood tragedy bonded Jessica Jensen to Oregon’s mighty Nesika River, she has seen herself as its guardian. Now a courageous field biologist, she has just finished gathering scientific evidence that could bring about the dismantling of the massive hydro dam that threatens to destroy her river. But […]
Read MoreForgotten Things, Stephen Mullaney-Westwood
The beauty of the Cornish countryside… The innocence of childhood in the 1980’s… An ancient mystery not quite forgotten. Mullaney-Westwood’s first novel is a spiritual coming of age tale mixing haunting faery lore and a deep love for the natural world. Fairy tales are one thing…faeries, are another. ‘A magical […]
Read MoreThe Whale Caller, Zakes Mda
As Zakes Mda’s fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale-watchers–foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp […]
Read MoreOn a River’s Bank, A Madhavan
Unfortunately I cannot find this book at Goodreads yet, but the Hindu Business Line has an interesting article with the title: Unquiet Flows a River: The English translation of a famed 1974 Tamil novel lets a broader audience take in the ethos of a subaltern people in a fecund Dravidian […]
Read MoreThe Summer Book, Tove Jansson
An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges – one that encompasses not only the […]
Read MoreFlames, Robbie Arnott
Perspective is handled deftly by the author. As Arnott moves from fisherman Karl and his dome-headed seal, to the gin-swilling private detective, to the police sergeant being ruthlessly divorced by his wife, we are confronted by characters that are in equal measure, tough and beautiful. And importantly, Jack McAllister becomes […]
Read MoreLost Objects, Marian Womack
These stories explore place and landscape at different stages of decay, positioning them as fighting grounds for death and renewal. From dystopian Andalusia to Scotland or the Norfolk countryside, they bring together monstrous insects, ghostly lovers, soon-to-be extinct species, unexpected birds, and interstellar explorers, to form a coherent narrative about […]
Read MoreThe Story Collector, Evie Gaughan
See our world eco-fiction spotlight on this title at Dragonfly. The Story Collector treads the intriguing line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen. With a taste for the magical in everyday life, Evie Gaughan’s latest novel is full of ordinary characters with extraordinary tales to […]
Read More