It’s 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother, Marianne, dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs, 14-year-old Mae had fallen into one of her trances, often a result of feeling too closely attuned to her mother’s dark moods.

After Marianne is unwillingly admitted to a mental hospital, Edie and Mae are forced to move from their childhood home in Louisiana to New York to live with their estranged father, Dennis, a former civil rights activist and literary figure on the other side of success. The girls, grieving and homesick, are at first wary of their father’s affection, but soon Mae and Edie’s close relationship begins to fall apart – Edie remains fiercely loyal to Marianne, convinced that Dennis is responsible for her mother’s downfall, while Mae, suffocated by her striking resemblances to her mother, feels pulled toward their father. The girls move in increasingly opposing and destructive directions as they struggle to cope with outsized pain, and as the history of Dennis and Marianne’s romantic past clicks into focus, the family fractures further.

Moving through a selection of first-person accounts and with a sinister sense of humor, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish powerfully captures the quiet torment of two sisters craving the attention of a parent they can’t, and shouldn’t, have to themselves.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, borrowed from the library for my work’s book club.

Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife.

Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, bleach, and more bleach), the best way to move a body (wrap it in sheets like a mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.

Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.

Exits by Stephen C. Pollock for review.

“Pollock’s poetry is brilliant”

— Kristiana Reed, editor in chief, Free Verse Revolution

Stephen C. Pollock’s poetry collection Exits nods to the literary traditions of years past while simultaneously speaking to the present moment. Multilayered and musical, the poems in Exits have drawn comparisons to the work of Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney. With bold imagery, attention to form, and a consistent through line rooted in the theme of mortality, Pollock’s collection responds to contemporary anxieties surrounding death and the universal search for meaning in life’s transience.

“Exits…is a magnificent work”

— Rich Follett, Readers’ Favorite Reviews, 5.0 stars

“Exits exemplifies the musicality of language”

— Foreword-Clarion Reviews

“Full of wit, insight and provocative imagery, Exits is a masterful collection”

— IndieReader, 5.0 stars

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron for review.

A beautiful creation of song and scar, of emotional complexity and simple witness, Louis Efron’s debut collection The Unempty Spaces Between mingles the natural and human worlds in a series of accessible, personal, universal poems. From lush to bare, the landscapes he presents us with are so intertwined with and impacted by our actions that we realize the two have always been one. Brimming with meditations deep as winter snow and boundless compassion and curiosity, these vibrant poems remain grounded in a universal familiarity that opens us up to something greater. -John Sibley Williamsauthor of As One Fire Consumes Another

Louis Efron’s collection The Unempty Spaces Between reveals a reverence for nature and personal connection that reminds us of Mary Oliver’s gorgeous nature poems. He uses language beautifully to tell us that tides “scar the sand,” “petals color the earth/a sweet jazz composition,” and “death can be a beautiful thing . . . unleashing the pent-up coil spring.” These poems are a deep meditation on emptiness and the searching soul. -Karol Nielsenauthor of Small Life

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron is a refreshing work of poetry. Refreshing is the respect given to the craft of poetry. In the poetic world, where prose poetry dominates the landscape, it’s refreshing to read poems marked by form and end-rhymes; notwithstanding, the journey the reader will take processing the metaphoric. Evidence of form, rhyme, and the metaphoric are signified in the poems Lost, A Candle with Two Wicks, and Spaces Between, to name a few. This work of poetry is worthy of a good read and the time of those who enjoy serious writing. -Emmett Wheatfallauthor of Our Scarlet Blue Wounds

Haunting, harrowing and frighteningly incisive, Louis Efron’s dark narrative poems incite terror, provoke gut wrenching memories and invite personal reflection. A nightmarish adventure-what could be better? The Unempty Spaces Between is one of my favorite afternoon reads in a decade. In his own words, “a poetic inferno,” but to my mind it’s “a welcome assault on the senses.” -Jim Volz, Ph.D.Editor, Shakespeare Theatre Association’s Quarto

What did you receive?