“She’d first eaten her father’s salt, then her husband’s; it was time to eat her own.” “If she was this lonely, Geeta berated herself, she should get a damn dog.” Take “Goodbye Earl” (or, more recently, Taylor Swift’s take on the same theme with “No Body, No Crime”), set it in India and change MaryContinue reading “THE BANDIT QUEENS – Parini Shroff”
Author Archives: Tommi Powell
THE NEW LIFE – Tom Crewe
Tom Crewe’s debut novel, The New Life (Scribner 2023), is historical fiction based on actual events. Crewe plays a little bit with the timeline and reimagines documented relationships as well as creates new ones. In the Afterword, he writes “Truths needn’t always depend on facts for their expression.” Crewe is a novelist; he’s not aContinue reading “THE NEW LIFE – Tom Crewe”
AGE OF VICE – Deepti Kapoor
Billed as India’s response to The Godfather, Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice (Riverhead Books 2023) is a gangster novel meets political commentary kissed with a romance wrapped in a family saga. In short, it’s a muddled, confusing thrill ride of extreme violence and unlikeable characters. Even though a bit sloppy at times and in seriousContinue reading “AGE OF VICE – Deepti Kapoor”
TREACLE WALKER – Alan Garner
“There was a whispering, silence; and on the floor the snow melted to tears.” Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker (4th Estate, HarperCollins 2021) was my final read of the 2022 Booker Prize longlist. Having read it, I’m a bit surprised this slim, little oddity of a novel made the shortlist; but it did, and Garner isContinue reading “TREACLE WALKER – Alan Garner”
THE BONE SHARD WAR – Andrea Stewart
Orbit Books recently sent Andrea Stewart’s The Drowning Empire trilogy in anticipation of the release of book three. (A huge thanks for the gifted books.) Reviews for the first two of the trilogy, The Bone Shard Daughter and The Bone Shard Emperor, have already been posted. The riveting conclusion to the trilogy, The Bone Shard War, willContinue reading “THE BONE SHARD WAR – Andrea Stewart”
WANDERING SOULS – Cecile Pin
“I am trying to carve out a story between the macabre and the fairy tale, so that a glimmer of truth can appear.” “There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies – everything in between is speculation.” Following the end of the Vietnam War, over 1,000,000 refugees fled Vietnam seeking refugeContinue reading “WANDERING SOULS – Cecile Pin”
STONE BLIND – Natalie Haynes
“I see you. I see all those who men call monsters. And I see the men who call them that. Call themselves heroes, of course.” The story of Medusa isn’t about just Medusa. It could never be just about Medusa because mythology weaves in and out. The gods and goddesses, the Fates and Greys andContinue reading “STONE BLIND – Natalie Haynes”
TRESPASSES – Louise Kennedy
“They were like a tag team, taking turns to fall apart.” Set in Ireland during “The Troubles,” Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses (Riverhead 2022) is a weeping wound of a novel about womanhood, love, and family with a violent backdrop of the politics that defined Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. Admittedly, it wasn’t on my radarContinue reading “TRESPASSES – Louise Kennedy”
THE FAIRY BARGAINS OF PROSPECT HILL – Rowenna Miller
Rowena Miller’s The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill (Redhook/Orbit, publication date 3/28/2023) is a bit The Once and Future Witches meets Practical Magic, but with fae instead of witches. It’s a cozy fantasy of sisters, mothers, and womanhood woven with brilliant bits of family, society, and legends. (A huge thanks to the publisher for thisContinue reading “THE FAIRY BARGAINS OF PROSPECT HILL – Rowenna Miller”
LEMON – Kwon Yeo-Sun
“Lemon, I muttered. Like a chant of revenge, I muttered: Lemon, lemon, lemon.” Da-on “Her beauty was urgent, precarious, like the piercing wail of a speeding ambulance. I could not look away.” – Sanghui’s description of Taerim Lemon (Other Press 2021, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong) is Kwon Yeo-sun’s first novel to beContinue reading “LEMON – Kwon Yeo-Sun”
A Girl Named Tommi 