Book Reviews

Natalie Standiford’s Astrid Sees All follows Phoebe, a naïve young woman under the sway of an intoxicating friendship, into the perilous, glamorous world of early 1980s New York City. Standiford will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 20.

Vespasiano da Bisticci, called “king of the world’s booksellers” and “prince of Florentine booksellers” by contemporaries in the 15th century, makes for a compelling central figure in Ross King’s The Bookseller of Florence. King will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 19.

Richly detailed and atmospheric, Nashville writer J. Nicole Jones’ memoir, Low Country, tells the multi-generational story of Jones’ family but does so by hybridizing that narrative with an ecosystem of history, folklore, and ghost stories long associated with South Carolina’s swamps, beaches, and pine forests.

The Girl from Shadow Springs, the debut YA novel by East Tennessee writer Ellie Cypher, depicts a young woman’s struggle against a brutal environment as she tries to save her kidnapped sister.

Sidney Thompson’s Hell on the Border, the second novel in a planned trilogy, continues the historical tale of Bass Reeves, an enslaved Arkansan who became a legendary frontier lawman. Thompson will discuss the book at a virtual event hosted by Novel in Memphis on April 17.