The novel intertwines the lives of four people, each one of whom is grappling in some way with loss, fear, and betrayal. Esther, the main character, is in London to care for her dying mother and to escape from the breakdown of her marriage. < Back Underground Fugue Margot Singer September 6, 2018 Listening to NPR one day in the summer of 2005, author Margot Singer heard a report about a mute pianist who had washed up on the northern coast of England. That was also the summer of the London rush hour bombings that paralyzed the city and killed and maimed hundreds. Those news reports marinated over the years and finally led Margot to write her first novel, Underground Fugue (Melville House, 2017). The novel intertwines the lives of four people, each one of whom is grappling in some way with loss, fear, and betrayal. Esther, the main character, is in London to care for her dying mother and to escape from the breakdown of her marriage. Esther’s mother, Lonia, tosses in bed remembering her escape from Nazi Germany, and her beloved brother’s failure to make it out alive. Esther’s neighbor, Javad, is the Persian doctor who is consulted about a mute piano player who washed up on the beach in the north of England. He is also the long-divorced father of nineteen-year-old Amir, who comes and goes at odd hours, and seems to be involved in something secretive. The story weaves the lives and thoughts of these four characters before and after the shocking 7/7 terror attack in London’s underground. Underground Fugue won the 2017 Edward Lewis Wallant Award for American Jewish fiction. Singer’s 2007 story collection, The Pale of Settlement , won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, and an Honorable Mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Margot Singer’s work has been featured on NPR and in many publications such as theKenyon Review, the Gettysburg Review , Agni , and Conjunctions . She is a professor of English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Lacy Fewer inherited sacks of letters from a great aunt who emigrated from Ireland to America in 1908 and turned the letters into a novel. < Back Yankeeland Lacy Fewer July 8, 2025 It’s the early 1900s and Brigid is restricted by straightlaced Irish society and a difficult stepmother, but her father is loving and supportive. She and her cousin Molly dream of life in Yankeeland, a.k.a. America, but only Brigid gets the chance once she’s married, and a lifetime of correspondence follows. While Molly thrives back in Ireland, Brigid’s dream of having a child leads to unexpected problems in a society that values women for their childbearing capabilities. With little to no help available for the problem of infertility, her mental health suffers. Irish author Lacy Fewer based this moving historical story on the letters she inherited from her great-aunt who emigrated in 1908. Lacy Fewer is the recipient of the Literary Titan Book Award for her debut novel Yankeeland , a powerful story of family secrets and societal change. Fewer, born and raised in Ireland, has nearly three decades of experience working in the financial services sector. She earned numerous degrees and certifications, including: QFA from Institute of Bankers; CFP master’s degree from them as well; a Master of Science in Financial Planning and Services, and then a professional diploma in Fintech, both from University of College in Dublin. She recently earned a Certificate in ESG Investing from CFA. Fewer enjoys theatre, reading literature, storytelling, travel and studying history. A proud Dubliner, she resides, with her husband, in a small village close to Dublin City, in Co. Meath. They have three children. You can find her at http://www.linkedin.com/in/annmarie-lacy-fewer . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Set on the Maine coast, where the Howland family has lived for almost 400 years, the grandfather, John Howland, lives in a fantasy that still places him at the center of the world. < Back A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed Jason Brown January 7, 2020 The ten linked stories in Jason Brown 's A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed (Missouri Review, 2019) follow John Howland and his descendants as they struggle with their New England legacy as one of the country's founding families and the decaying trappings of that esteemed past. Set on the Maine coast, where the Howland family has lived for almost 400 years, the grandfather, John Howland, lives in a fantasy that still places him at the center of the world. The next generation resides in the confused ruins of the 1960s rebellion, while many in the third generation feel they have no choice but to scatter in search of a new identity. Jason Brown earned his MFA from Cornell University, and was a Stegner Fellow and Truman Capote Fellow at Stanford University, where he taught as a Jones Lecturer. He has received fellowships from the Yaddo and Macdowell colonies and from the Saltonsall Foundation. He taught for many years in the MFA program at the University of Arizona and now teaches in the MFA program at the University of Oregon. He has published two books of short stories, Driving the Heart and Other Stories (Norton/Random House) and Why the Devil Chose New England For His Work (Open City/Grove Atlantic). His stories have won several awards and appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Atlantic, Harper’s, TriQuarterly and other magazines and anthologies. Several of his stories have been performed as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts, and his collection Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work was chosen as a summer reading pick by National Public Radio. Stories from the new collection have appeared or will appear in Southern Review, Prairie Schooner (winning their editor’s prize and receiving special mention in the back of Best American Short Stories), Electric Literature, Bellevue Review, Dalhousie Review and the Editor’s Prize from the Missouri Review . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Immigration problems, climate issues, dysfunctional families, road barricades, and the division between haves and have nots play a role in this dream-like novel. < Back News of the Air Jill Stukenberg October 4, 2022 Immigration problems, climate issues, dysfunctional families, road barricades, and the division between haves and have nots play a role in this dream-like novel. Set in Wisconsin’s stunning Northwoods, News of the Air (Black Lawrence Press, 2022) by Jill Stukenberg centers on a mother, father, and their teenage daughter, who voice the story from each of their perspectives. The novel opens with a pregnant Allie recalling her divorce, worried about her future, avoiding roadblocks to get to work at a Chicago museum, and frantic because of nearby eco-terrorism. In the next chapter, Allie and her husband Bud are proprietors of a far north rustic resort, and their previously homeschooled daughter Cassie, is about to finish her schooling in the local high school. Then two children show up in a canoe, and there is confusion about who they are and what they’re doing in the Northwoods. Jill Stukenberg’s short stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic , The Collagist (now The Rupture ), Wisconsin People and Ideas magazine, and other literary magazines. News of the Air, her debut novel, won the Big Moose prize from Black Lawrence Press. Stukenberg is a graduate of the MFA program at New Mexico State University, has received writing grants from the University of Wisconsin Colleges, and has been awarded writing residencies at Shake Rag Alley and Write On, Door County. Jill is an Associate Professor of English at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point at Wausau. She grew up in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and has previously taught in New Mexico and the Pacific Northwest. Jill enjoys cross country skiing, hiking, and sailing on Green Bay in a small, very old, but still bright blue sailboat with a cracked wooden tiller. She lives in Wausau with the poet Travis Brown and their eight-year-old. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), Gabriel Bump has created an unforgettable debut novel that will sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes pull at your gut. < Back Everywhere You Don’t Belong Gabriel Bump June 8, 2020 Abandoned by his parents and raised by a strong-willed grandmother and her live-in friend, Claude McKay Love just wants to have friends and fit in at school or on the playground. He faces all the usual hurdles of growing up, with the additional challenge of being black. And he lives in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, formerly home of both Michelle Obama and Kanye West. It’s packed with beautiful old homes and sits on the lakefront about 9 miles from downtown Chicago, but it was a food desert for a number of years and missed out on much of Chicago’s growth and expansion. Claude has to navigate past gangs, drug wars, and a riot in which seventy neighbors and friends are killed. He also falls in love. In Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), Gabriel Bump has created an unforgettable debut novel that will sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes pull at your gut. Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago. His work has appeared in: McSweeney’s, Guernica, Electric Literature, SLAM , and elsewhere. Everywhere You Don’t Belong is his first novel. His second novel is forthcoming, also from Algonquin. He was awarded the 2016 Deborah Slosberg Memorial Award for Fiction and the 2015 Summer Literary Seminars Montreal Flash Fiction Prize. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. He currently lives in Buffalo, New York, where he teaches at Just Buffalo Literary Center and University at Buffalo. When he’s not writing or reading, Gabriel enjoys playing video games and starting, sometimes finishing, long boring history books. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

The Genuine Stories is a linked collection centered around Genevieve “Genuine” Eriksson, a woman with an uncanny ability to heal people. Her gift begins to unfold at the age of eight despite the lingering disbelief of her parents. < Back The Genuine Stories Susan Smith Daniels May 1, 2019 The Genuine Stories is a linked collection centered around Genevieve “Genuine” Eriksson, a woman with an uncanny ability to heal people. Her gift begins to unfold at the age of eight despite the lingering disbelief of her parents. Though she grows up under the watchful eyes of her parents and the jealous protection of the Catholic Church, she strikes out on her own after healing, and falling in love with, Kevin Saunders, a man fifteen years her senior. In her own voice, and those of family, friends, and the healed, Genuine’s experiences peel back and expose the gritty aspects of power and privilege, the far-reaching limit of parental love, the perpetually oscillating balance in relationships, and the ineffable nature of grief. Susan Smith Daniels , author and freelance journalist, is the winner of the Fairfield University Book Prize for The Genuine Stories (New Rivers Press, 2018). Born and raised in Philadelphia, she moved to Iowa with her husband and family in 1981. Susan began her writing career as a columnist for Practical Horseman Magazine when her youngest daughter was attending horse shows. She is the author of the very popular The Horse Show Mom’s Survival Guide (The Lyons Press, 2005). An MFA graduate of Fairfield University, Daniels is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In Charred, the third of G. P. Gottlieb’s Whipped and Sipped Mysteries, her heroine, Alene Baron, has a lot on her mind. Chicago is in lockdown, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, complicating Alene’s already hectic life. < Back Charred: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery G.P. Gottlieb April 4, 2023 In Charred , the third of G. P. Gottlieb’s Whipped and Sipped Mysteries, her heroine, Alene Baron, has a lot on her mind. Chicago is in lockdown, a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, complicating Alene’s already hectic life. The vegan café she owns can serve only takeout, and her three kids complain constantly about school via Zoom and the near-absence of opportunities to interact with their friends. Alene’s ex-husband is, as ever, no help. Her aging father also requires assistance, a reality complicated when his usual caretaker falls ill with the virus. Alene struggles to find time even to visit the café, never mind bake. But with her livelihood at stake, she must keep showing up, no matter how many conflicting demands tug her in other directions. On the up side, Alene’s romance with Frank, a police officer, is progressing—although they have yet to make the relationship permanent. And conflict among her staff members has eased, even though they still argue about the best approach to the pandemic and the homeless man who regularly stations himself outside the café and insults staff and customers as they go in and out, among other issues. All that changes when Kofi, the boyfriend of a Whipped and Sipped staff member, stumbles over a charred corpse while searching for wood he can use in his artwork. Kofi’s girlfriend begs Alene not to involve the police, despite Alene’s protests that keeping secrets will undermine her relationship with Frank. Soon Alene has no choice but to find out what’s behind the mysterious death, even if it means delving into the long-buried secrets of her own family. G. P. Gottlieb hosts New Books in Literature, a podcast channel in the New Books Network. Charred is her third novel. C. P. Lesley is the author of two historical fiction series set during the childhood of Ivan the Terrible and three other novels. Her latest book, Song of the Storyteller, appeared in January 2023. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Eliyah is 25 when she travels from Tel Aviv to Paris to meet up with her husband, who turns out to be having an affair with a French woman. As her life crumbles, Eliyah plunges into a deep depression, returns home to her childhood bed, and slowly descends into madness. < Back The Woman Beyond the Sea Sarit Yishai-Levi March 28, 2023 Eliyah is 25 when she travels from Tel Aviv to Paris to meet up with her husband, who turns out to be having an affair with a French woman. As her life crumbles, Eliyah plunges into a deep depression, returns home to her childhood bed, and slowly descends into madness. The therapist assigned to her after a suicide attempt manages to help her rebuild her life, but she still grapples with Lily, her not-very loving mother. Then Eliyah and her mother journey across the sea to discover the truth about who they both are. Moving but sometimes horrifying backstories set around the world fill out the lives of the characters - Eliyah’s mother, father, her new boyfriend, and her grandparents. This is a sweeping saga about trauma, betrayal, antisemitism, expulsion from home and country, and secrets. Sarit Yishai-Levi Yishai-Levi was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardic family that has lived in the city for eight generations. She’s been living with her family in Tel Aviv since 1970 and is a renowned Israeli journalist and author. In 2016 she published her first book, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem . It immediately became a bestseller and garnered critical acclaim. The book sold more than three hundred thousand copies in Israel, was translated into ten languages, and was adapted into a TV series that won the Israeli TV award for best drama series. It also won the Publishers Association’s Gold, Platinum, and Diamond prizes; the Steimatzky Prize for bestselling book of the year in Israel; and the WIZO France Prize for best book translated into French. Yishai-Levi’s second book, The Woman Beyond the Sea , was published in 2019. It won the Publishers Association’s Gold and Platinum prizes and was adapted for television by Netflix. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sharifa and her husband Murtuza are spending his sabbatical year in Mumbai with their seven-year-old daughter, Zeenat. While Murtuza teaches, Shari is planning to homeschool Zee, reconnect with her family, and research her great-great grandfather with hopes of creating a family history. But Sharifa’s cousins, with whom she was once close, are at odds. < Back Seven Farzana Doctor November 25, 2020 Sharifa and her husband Murtuza are spending his sabbatical year in Mumbai with their seven-year-old daughter, Zeenat. While Murtuza teaches, Shari is planning to homeschool Zee, reconnect with her family, and research her great-great grandfather with hopes of creating a family history. But Sharifa’s cousins, with whom she was once close, are at odds. Fatema is involved in a campaign to ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) while Zainab sees it as a time-honored tradition that must be respected. Sharifa thinks it’s a cruel and harmful injustice, but isn’t at all sure it is still practiced in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim sect they all belong to – and if it is, she wonders who is insisting on such an outdated practice? Today I talked to writer, activist, and psychotherapist Farzana Doctor, author of Seven (Dundurn Press, 2020). She was born in Zambia to Indian parents, lived there for five years and then in 1971, immigrated with her family to Canada. As a teenager, Doctor became interested in community organizing around issues of gender violence, gender rights, and environmental protection. She currently volunteers with WeSpeakOut, a global group that is working to ban female genital cutting in her Dawoodi Bohra community. Her first novel was Stealing Nasreen 2007, and her second, Six Metres of Pavement 2012, won a Lambda Literary Award and was short-listed for the 2012 Toronto Book Award. Her third novel, All Inclusive , was a Kobo 2015 and National Post Best Book of the Year. Named one of CBC Books’ “100 Writers in Canada You Need To Know Now,” she has also recently published a poetry collection. In her spare time, Farzana Doctor poses Maggie, her dog, with books she loves under the hashtag #MaggieWithBooks. And in previous times, she loved going to restaurants and travelling. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Sitting on the porch swing at her family’s vacation house, Mazie sees an old woman cutting through the orchard across the way and offers her a glass of water. Before long, they are playing cards every morning, and Mazie, triggered by the place that holds many childhood memories, begins sharing stories with her new friend, Lula. < Back The Rocky Orchard Barbara Monier June 26, 2020 Sitting on the porch swing at her family’s vacation house, Mazie sees an old woman cutting through the orchard across the way and offers her a glass of water. Before long, they are playing cards every morning, and Mazie, triggered by the place that holds many childhood memories, begins sharing stories with her new friend, Lula. As Mazie reveals more about her past, she begins to question how Lula happened to come into view that morning, and how she herself made her way back to the orchard. Today I talked to Barbara Monier about her new novel The Rocky Orchard (Amika Press, 2020). Monier studied writing at Yale University and the University of Michigan, but she has been writing since she could hold a chubby pencil. While at Michigan, she received the Avery and Jule Hopwood Prize. Before The Rocky Orchard’ s release, her three previous novels are You, In Your Green Shirt , A Little Birdie Told Me , and Pushing the River . Ms. Monier lives in Chicago, where a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan inspires her writing, except when it distracts her and makes writing anything completely impossible. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

In The Maverick, author Jennifer Valenti plugs into the current zeitgeist of young women who struggle to defy the casual sexism of men in power. Jane Valiante is elated when the hottest tech company in the world offers to fly her from Florida to New York for the job of her dreams. < Back The Maverick Jennifer Valenti December 1, 2020 In The Maverick (Broken Arrow Books, 2020), author Jennifer Valenti plugs into the current zeitgeist of young women who struggle to defy the casual sexism of men in power. Jane Valiante is elated when the hottest tech company in the world offers to fly her from Florida to New York for the job of her dreams. After a long day of interviews, Jane feels insecure about her chances, but then she receives an invitation to the holiday party from the CEO and Founder, Peter Wright. She happily accepts, and has a lovely, if perhaps overly boozy time. Unfortunately, Peter ends up in her hotel room, where he overpowers and rapes her. Then he leaves. Although she’s traumatized, she doesn’t let it stop her from accepting a position in Peter’s company. What is it going to take to propel Jane on a journey of self-discovery that will allow her to learn who she is and what she is capable of? Jennifer Valenti was born in New Hampshire, grew up in Florida, hailed from Boston, and is mostly a New Yorker. Moving around meant learning to adapt quickly, which came in handy as a single mother raising two amazing young men (and a dog with separation anxiety.) For every failure, she enjoyed equal success with careers in film and television, technology, and consulting, the latter two of which were against much of her will. She earned a BA and MBA, and is currently a senior executive in business consulting. When Jennifer is not working, writing, cooking, or baking, she is an avid world traveler, and has so far visited 110 countries. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

“July 25, 1969 12:41am Hunts Landing. Acrid sulfur from the fireworks faded with the nighttime breeze. Dr. Theodore Wexler held up his glass-red flashes from the police cars on the Quad pulsed chestnut in the bourbon. Pulse. Pulse. The cadence matched his heartbeat, steadier now, settled after this disrupted day of jubilee.“ < Back The Dead Won't Tell S.K. Waters (aka Sue Arroyo 1966-2024) December 6, 2022 In The Dead Won't Tell (Camcat Books, 2022), Abbie Adams is hired to write an article about an unsolved murder that took place in a small southern college town on the evening of the Moon Landing in 1969. She’d almost completed her doctorate but was derailed at the end, and instead became a journalist. She’s widowed with two teenagers, and the faculty advisor who’d refused to pass her dissertation seems to be connected to the crime. She’s forced to speak to him for the first time since he derailed her career, but he refuses to tell her anything. So, in addition to hosting an old college friend with his own journalistic quest, Abbie seeks out the few living witnesses in order to piece together the events of that evening. When two of those witnesses are murdered and another is pushed down the stairs, it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want the truth coming out. Abbie’s friends rally to protect her as she rushes to meet either her deadline or her downfall. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next