Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews

Painting a gritty and visceral picture of life on the road, specifically the rugged west, author T.K. O’Neill crafts a haunted hero in his latest novel, Dive Bartender: Flowers in the Desert.

Frank is itching for a new chapter in Denver, but there aren’t enough mountains in Colorado to keep old habits and bad luck from catching up. Navigating a seedy minefield of manipulation, desperation, desire, and even hope, this wandering rogue of a protagonist finds himself in strange company, compelled to stay just a bit longer in decadence and pleasure, and delaying his California dreams one day at […]

Wielding a vitriolic pen to summon a protagonist with a black cloud perpetually hanging over his head, Joseph DeMatteo’s Boxed In is a character-driven drama that unpacks the toxicity of men and modern life.

Ernie Eubanks is fed up with everything – he still lives with his mother, he lost his job as a salesman after thirty years, and every person he meets seems hellbent on irritating him. There aren’t enough cups of coffee or cheeseburgers in the world to chuck at all his problems, but he is about to learn that his bad behavior does have repercussions, and some […]

A recovering addict attempting to rejoin society is swept into the mysterious world of an eccentric sculptor in Oblivion Black by Christa Wojciechowski, a shadowy meditation on art, lust, fame and its ensuing destruction.

From the first explosive, mind-rattling pages, this novel hits like a tailor-made drug, with well-timed jump cuts of narration and insightful drop-ins to critical moments and revelations. Anton, Ona, Aunt Vee, and Oz make an interesting core of this darkly entrancing story, their fates seemingly entwined, despite their haphazard involvement in one another’s lives. Ona’s relationship with the regulars of her NA meetings adds another layer […]

A childless couple ends up taking in four youngsters in D.A. Callahan’s A Full Quiver, an affecting, poignant story about how parenting doesn’t have to be perfect.

Steve and Jennifer Mei Griffin run a security firm for the rich and famous in Washington, DC. They become guardians to their goddaughter after her parents’ untimely death, and through a strange series of circumstances, they end up housing three more kids over the next few months. Over the course of the story, the Griffins form a close-knit, unconventional family unit and must band together to fend off dangerous threats from the […]