Book Reviews

Margaret Jones’ The Life and Times of Patsy Cline portrays a complex woman and a gifted artist whose best records transcend genre.

In her new thriller, Only if You’re Lucky, Stacy Willingham slowly unravels a knotted, twisted tale of loss, revenge, and manipulation. Willingham will discuss the book at Novel in Memphis on January 20 and Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 24.

In Eric Schlich’s new novel, Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife, the son of a Bible-belt minister begins to doubt his own story about visiting heaven. Schlich will discuss Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife at Novel in Memphis on January 16.

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: In his fifth collection, Fugitive Atlas, poet Khaled Mattawa — a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga — issues a timely invitation to examine our many migrations, gently calling us out of ourselves and into the world. In a series of imaginative and provocative poems, he asks us to consider the borders that exist off the map and apply meaning to our real lives.

Aime Alley Card’s extraordinary book, The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legends from Tennessee State, describes the women’s track and field program at Tennessee State University from its humble beginnings to the triumphant performance of Wilma Rudolph and her teammates at the 1960 Rome Olympics. Card will discuss The Tigerbelles at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 3.

In her latest novel, The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon depicts the inner world of Martha Ballard, a real 18th-century American midwife and healer who kept a diary of her extraordinary life. Lawhon will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on December 5.