BOOK REVIEWS: Craft-focused reviews and analysis from our editorial staff on popular titles—geared toward writers.

Reviewing HOSTILE WITNESS by Rebecca Forster A reminder of why characterization still matters in mystery suspense

“When sixteen-year-old Hannah Sheraton is arrested for the murder of her stepgrandfather, the chief justice of the California Supreme court, her distraught mother turns to her old college roommate, Josie Baylor-Bates, for help. Josie, once a hot-shot criminal defense attorney, left the fast track behind for a small practice in Hermosa Beach, California. But Hannah […]

By |2024-01-06T22:27:02+00:00|Book Reviews|Comments Off on Reviewing HOSTILE WITNESS by Rebecca Forster A reminder of why characterization still matters in mystery suspense

One Editor’s Love/Hate Relationship with Freedom (By Jonathan Franzen) Ross Browne's review of Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

“In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys […]

By |2024-01-21T19:41:17+00:00|Book Reviews|Comments Off on One Editor’s Love/Hate Relationship with Freedom (By Jonathan Franzen) Ross Browne's review of Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen

Twilight, A “First 50” Review A review of the first 50 pages of Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

The first 50 pages of Twilight make for what I would call a mildly interesting read.

The novel opens with a preface of a half page in which an unnamed narrator writing in the first person contemplates the fact that she’s about to die, presumably at the hand of an also-unnamed ‘hunter.’ What’s interesting here is that the narrator doesn’t […]

By |2024-01-06T22:40:15+00:00|Book Reviews|Comments Off on Twilight, A “First 50” Review A review of the first 50 pages of Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
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