David Joy recommends
While We Were Burning (2024)Sara Koffi"A masterful accounting of the weight of things unspoken. While We Were Burning rams headlong into issues of class, privilege, and race with a cast of characters deeply flawed and richly complex. This is a story at once poignant, propulsive, and powerful. Sara Koffi has delivered a remarkable debut."Sweet Thing (2023)David Swinson"Pages don't flip this fast without wind and Swinson has whirled a hurricane of a story. The dialogue is tight and true. Alex Blum is a character to love. Sweet Thing is a feat." Ozark Dogs (2023)Eli Cranor"A sophomore effort of remarkable scope and stride, Ozark Dogs is a saga of blood spilt and blood owed, which at its bones reveals how far we will go to protect the ones we love. Eli Cranor is a fire that is growing." The Devil Takes You Home (2022)Gabino Iglesias"The Devil Takes You Home is carried by a voice and rhythm, shaving sharp and wholly indelible. Iglesias never fails to keep a masterful foot on the pedal, feathering off the gas at times only to inevitably press it to the floor and pin us to our seats." Rose Royal (2022)Nicolas Mathieu"Reminiscent of Chopin's The Awakening, Nicolas Mathieu has delivered a brief, fierce glimpse of lives compounded and compressed beneath the weight of patriarchy, where the control is as often mental as physical and the violence is as much silent as deafening." Even As We Breathe (2020)Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle"A period piece that illuminates and echoes our current time. A powerful story told by voices that ring true as scripture. Even As We Breathe is an awakening. This is a masterful debut from the writer we need right now." Vanishing Falls (2020)Poppy Gee"Vanishing Falls is a game of Clue in the Tasmanian rainforest with a rich cast of characters and a flawlessly sketched locale. Poppy Gee has written the perfect kind of mystery: a world that feels at once fresh and familiar with a story that drives at a frenzied clip." All Things Left Wild (2020)James Wade"James Wade has delivered a McCarthy-esque odyssey with an Elmore Leonard ear for dialogue. All Things Left Wild moves like a coyote across this cracked-earth landscape--relentlessly paced and ambitiously hungry." Before Familiar Woods (2020)Ian Pisarcik"Pisarcik wields a poet’s eye, stacking images for a novel that flips and turns like the pages of a photo album. Before Familiar Woods is ripe with unforgettable characters. This is a debut to savor." Three-Fifths (2019)John Vercher"Feverishly entertaining. Resoundingly important. A book treading this kind of ground should not be able to move this fast. THREE-FIFTHS is an honest, fearless page-burner. Vercher is a writer to watch." Where the Crawdads Sing (2018)Delia Owens"Carries the rhythm of an old time ballad. It is clear Owens knows this land intimately, from the black mud sucking at footsteps to the taste of saltwater and the cry of seagulls." Crook's Hollow (2018)Robert Parker (
Rob Parker)
"A breakneck thriller slowed only by its subtle and masterful turns...a book to be relished and read again." Barbed Wire Heart (2018)Tess Sharpe"BARBED WIRE HEART is balanced on a knifepoint, a novel teetering between hope and fate, loyalty and betrayal. With a story of family and a narrator wrought hard as iron, Tess Sharpe has written a ballad of survival sung by a voice you'll never forget." A Walk in the Fire (2018)(Judah Cannon, book 2)Steph Post"WALK IN THE FIRE slings the Cannon family back on the page like a Molotov cocktail through a window. Few writers could coax a cast of characters this vast onto a single stage and orchestrate their story with such mastery. Post own the genre of North Florida noir." The Sisters of Glass Ferry (2017)Kim Michele Richardson"Richardson has a knack for layering a landscape with secrets, for slowly revealing what’s hidden until suddenly you find what you've been chasing sitting in the palm of your hand. The Sisters of Glass Ferry is bountifully written—a place fully realized and packed with characters you won’t soon forget." The River of Kings (2017)Taylor Brown"With language as rich as floodplain soil, The River of Kings is a stunning Southern epic of tremendous heart and scope. Taylor Brown takes risks few other writers would chance and somehow manages to traverse those waters with an astounding grace and beauty." Desperation Road (2017)Michael Farris Smith"A novel that lends dignity and grace to those too often damned, DESPERATION ROAD is fearless, guttural, and thunderously heartfelt. Quite simply one of our finest writers at work today, Michael Farris Smith has made his own place at the table." The Far Empty (2016)(Sheriff Chris Cherry, book 1)J Todd Scott"Balancing both the brutal and beautiful, J. Todd Scott has delivered a story that hangs around the neck long after the final page. Fearless, searing prose that reeks of honesty, 'The Far Empty' is as gritty and raw as sun-scorched earth." Awards
| Edgar Awards Best First Book nominee (2016) : Where All Light Tends to Go | | Macavity Awards Best First Book nominee (2016) : Where All Light Tends to Go |
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(b.1983)