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Elizabeth’s Women
A North Carolina writer, Anne Clinard Barnhill, offers her first review for Briar Patch Books. Anne lives in Garner. Her first novel, At the Mercy of the Queen, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press. Her previous books include At Home in the Land of Oz: Autism, My Sister and Me (memoir, Jessica Kingsley Publisher) and…
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Take a look — Margaret Maron review
By Linda Brinson In my debut book review for the Greensboro News & Record today, I look at Margaret Maron’s latest Deborah Knott mystery, Christmas Mourning. Maron’s series, as her many fans know, is a lot of fun. Her main character, Deborah Knott, is a district court judge in a county near Raleigh, N.C. She has 11…
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Anno Dracula
Just in time for Halloween, Steve Wishnevsky offers a review of a spooky classic. By Steve Wishnevsky ANNO DRACULA. By Kim Newman. Simon and Shuster. 1992. There is a minor branch of Fantasy known as the Pastiche, where the author will jam together fictional and historical characters in a familiar setting, usually for the purposes…
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A Nose for Justice
I count Rita Mae Brown as a Southern author because she lives in the Virginia hill country, and many of her books are set there. In the book I review here, however, Brown has gone to a very different part of the country for the setting of a new series. It’s the Nevada desert, where…
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White Night
Our latest book review is not of a newly published book, but rather of one representative book in a series that our reviewer considers worthy of discussion. The book can be found in hardback and paper editions. The reviewer is Steve Wishnevsky of Winston-Salem, an accomplished writer who also has many other creative talents. Here’s…
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Private Life
Our latest review is by that gentleman and scholar, Robert Moyer of Winston-Salem. Here’s how Bob describes himself (I think it’s mostly true): Bob Moyer is a member of the National Book Critics’ Circle. His haiku poetry has been published extensively, and may be seen frequently at Haiku News (wayfarergallery.net). He is a member of…
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Little Boy Blues — Check it out
Question for the day: If your friends publish their memoirs, does that mean you’re getting old? I don’t know the answer to that. But if you haven’t seen the October issue of Our State magazine already, be sure to check out my review of Little Boy Blues: A Memoir, by my old (but not…
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Painted Ladies
Here is Briar Patch Book’s second review. Mick Scott is an editor and connoisseur of good literature who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C. By Mick Scott PAINTED LADIES. By Robert B. Parker. Putnam. 304 pages. $26.95. Spenser is observing the day outside his office window when someone with unusual characteristics walks in to hire him. That’s…
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Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
By Linda Brinson Here’s my first review for Briar Patch Books. It’s a fitting topic for the debut post. While my fellow reviewers and I will tackle a variety of books, I have a special interest in Southern fiction. Tom Franklin’s book is one of the best new Southern novels I’ve read in a long…
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Hello from Linda
Hi, this will soon be my book blog. I was the book-review editor of the Winston-Salem Journal for 25 years. Since August, that book-review page is history, and so is my editorship. However, I’ve still been reading. And publishers have kindly been sending me review copies. So, as soon as I figure out what I’m…