Novel Full of Quirky Characters You Come to Care About Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Leif Enger’s Virgil Wander is an intriguing novel that manages to rope the reader in without a lot of sensational hooks, but instead, real-life characters in real-life situations. Set in a small town in northern…
A Wild Tale of a Religious Do-Gooder Who Never Gets it Quite Right Terri Martin’s Devilish Encounters: Church Lady Chronicles is the first anthology of stories about the adventures of Bea Righteous, one of the busybody “church ladies” of the Budworm United Methodist Church (a.k.a. BUMC). Of course, seeing the…
What happens when a self-proclaimed prophet predicts that the world will end in two weeks? That is the inciting incident for Lin Enger’s American Gospel, a 251-page novel set in August 1974, the same month Richard Nixon resigned the presidency following the Watergate scandal. The primary setting of the novel…
Local Ojibwe Legend Finally Set Straight by Native American Author Review by Victor R. Volkman The Legend of Kitch-iti-kipi, by Carole Lynn Hare, is a retelling of the eponymous myth as passed down through generations of Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indian band. The author, whose Native American name is…
Latest Jack Handler Thriller Deals With Soo Locks Explosion Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Sault: What Could be Worse than Great Lakes Erosion? is the fourteenth Jack Handler novel by Michael Carrier. That said, it can be read as a stand-alone book with little trouble. I have not yet read…
A Slice of Life from Chippewa County and Environs from 1960s to Today West of the River, North of the Bridge is the second (following Hitchhiking After Dark: Offbeat Stories from a Small Town) in Rich Hill’s series of short story anthologies about life in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan….
New Novel Reveals Pain of Native American Children Taken from Families Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Linda LeGarde Grover’s new novel, In the Night of Memory, is a powerful and moving story about two young girls who lose their mother. Dedicated to “the missing Native women and all who grieve…
Into the Digital Abyss.. and Back Again Review by Victor R. Volkman Ed. Note: “Into the Digital Maw” is currently out-of-print Ryan Hansen’s journeyman novel Into the Digital Maw is a sprawling, high-concept story of a lone hero attempting to free a society imprisoned in a post-apocalyptic digital landscape. In…
Shining a Light on Life in the U.P. Review by Victor R. Volkman The Sunshine Room, by Jan Stafford Kellis, is a meditation on family and the search for who we really are. Kellis skillfully mixes equal parts mystery and family drama – with a dash of humor – to…
Stories of Broken Men and Shattered Lives in the U.P. Review by Victor R. Volkman Hunter’s Moon, by Philip Caputo, is a nihilistic romp through the lives of military veterans set against the backdrop of a bleak Upper Peninsula. Caputo, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, is still probably best known for…
Smolens Returns to Marquette County and Takes Us Out for an Adventure Reviewed by Victor R. Volkman “Out” is a word that probably has a hundred different uses in the English language—everything from “out cold” to “out of the closet” —and, in the case of John Smolens’ novel of the…
