Review by Jon C. Stott “Nothing is impossible to a determined woman.” This statement by Louisa May Alcott, which introduces Chapter 38 of Linda Bakken’s On the Backs of Women: A Story about Family and Generations, encapsulates both the themes and the characters of a novel that is subtitled A…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar In Legacy of an Immigrant: Four Generations of Flying, Maria Vezzetti Matson shares the story of her incredible pioneer Italian-American family. This book, although based on Maria’s family history, is written as historical fiction. Maria takes some small license with the past and present to…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera Having read the first book, this reviewer was eager to read North of Nelson Vol. II. In that first volume, Hilton Everett Moore related stories of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from past generations. Volume II brings us from the 1950s and 60s to the present in…
Review by Jon C. Stott. Near the end of Sharon Kennedy’s The SideRoad Kids: Tales from Chippewa County, one of the characters muses: “It’s hard being 12. It’s like we’re in between.” Kate, who is in sixth grade, realizes that when the school year ends, an important stage in their…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The middle-grade novel Voodoo Shack is not just for kids. Adults who grew up in the 1960s will remember, fondly or otherwise, their growing-up years. Parents of today’s middle-grade readers may comment, “So that’s what it was like for my parents, and it’s pretty much…
‘Anatomy of a Murder’ Lives On Review by Rick Gould Robert Traver’s Anatomy of a Murder has enjoyed many lives. There was the actual Upper Michigan murder the summer of ’52. The case inspired the 1958 best-selling novel. The book became a classic 1959 film. There was a 2009 documentary….
Review by Deborah Frontiera In Odin’s Eye: A Marquette Time Travel Novel, Tichelaar’s main character, John/Neill Vandelaare, wakes up with no memory of who he is or how he came to be in a bed in the home of the Allen family. The year is 1900, the place, Marquette, Michigan….
Review by Mack Hassler Trained as a medievalist but now working mostly with stories about Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Tyler Tichelaar has learned how to weave in and out of time references perhaps from his work with Chaucer or the King Arthur stories. He has done a…
Review by Mack Hassler We read just now of the latest honor for the writing of Sue Harrison: her induction into the UP Literary Hall of Fame. So this fine new novel The Midwife’s Touch by an established award-winner for our literature comes at an auspicious time. It is a…
Review by Tyler R. Tichelaar Novel About Five Generations of Women Reflects Patchwork of American History Linda Bakken’s new historical novel On the Backs of Women: A Story About Family and Generations offers a look into the lives of five generations of women in the United States between the American…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Raymond Luczak’s book “Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories” presented tales of courageous women who lived in Ironwood, Michigan, a small town located at the west end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.). Many young men, during the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, fled to this community…
Reviewer: Sharon Brunner Hilton Everett Moore explored life during the early to mid-1900s in Nelson, a fictional small community located near Baraga and Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In North of Nelson, the trials and tribulations of some of the main characters as they face their challenges served…
Review by Brad Gischia “Of the 500-some men and women who set foot in Florida in 1527, only four survived after wandering for eight years across the American Southwest.” The only realistic comparison that we can make today to the men and women who traveled across oceans to “discover” the…
Review by Brad Gischia 1968 — Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll but the peace and love are dying. As it turns out, this is about the best description of Bob Calverley’s Sunshine Blues that I could come up with, and it was written by Calverley himself. The second in…
Reviewed by Tyler Tichelaar New Novel Captures Terrifying Carnival Ride of Native American Female Experience Chris Stark’s new novel Carnival Lights offers up a wild ride like no other in the history of Native American literature. Set in 1969, it plays fast and loose with time, continually juxtaposing the present…
Review by Donna Winters If you like a fast-paced historical novel rife with issues that resonate today, you’ll enjoy Waterfall. Set in the 1920s with a myriad of conflicts woven into the story, I often thought how contemporary the mindset was of the main character, Trinity Baird. The youngest of…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera When we first meet the Klar family, Anna and Gustaf and their children Ellen, Elisabet, and Carl, we think that this may be the “head for America and grow rich” immigrant story. Far from it. In the same way that few high school athletes make…
What happens when a female union activist confronts an intransigent mine operator? Review by Donna Winters This is the story told by Mary Doria Russell in The Women of the Copper Country—A Novel. The focus is the 1913 Keweenaw Copper Strike, which started on July 23 and ended April 14,…
