B OOK REVIEWS

SAM

by Allegra Goodman (2023)

Narci Drossos describes herself as a compulsive reader, saved in her youth by a summer bookmobile librarian who ignored the bi-weekly limit of five books; thus, allowing her in one summer, to go from Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew to David Copperfield and Jane Eyre. She holds three degrees from Valdosta State University and has been teaching English at Valdosta High School for over 30 years. She’s published book reviews in ELLE magazine and online on Instagram @novels_with_narci, where she’d appreciate a follow and your feedback on this VM feature using #VMbookreview.

Goodman is a graduate of Harvard and Stanford, and she writes literary fiction. This “Read with Jenna” selection has been featured in Vogue and People. The New York Times calls it “a portrait of a girl at risk that shimmers with an unusual intimacy and depth.” The eponymous character Sam comes of age in blue collar Massachusetts, far removed from its prep academies and prestigious universities.

Like her single mother’s aspirational focus, Sam is a climber – literally –she scales rocks, walls, and boulders. Figuratively, she is a climber too, yearning for more: more time with her (addict) dad, more meaningful relationships, and more hope for her future. This is a family that lives paycheck to paycheck, working more than one job with no outside help or hope but what they make themselves. there visiting her professor mother when the fatal hit and run happens. As Kirkus says, “The ensuing story is part police procedural, part general critique of the Greek system. Marlitt has a long-standing grudge against fraternities.” That last statement is putting it mildly. Nossett refers to her genre as “dark academia” comparable to My Dark Vanessa, The Cloisters, and The Secret History. There are dark secrets that go beyond the typical frat house and beyond the typical murder mystery. Marlitt is an engaging character, worth the complicated details that comprise the 300 pages of this novel. intricate thriller.” Hawkins has raised her literary profile with this novel, weaving a contemporary timeline of two competitive best friends/authors with another of 1970s rock and roll stars set in the fictional “Villa Aestas” in Umbria.

It sounds deceptively simple, but Sam’s story, told in her own voice which grows along with her from beginning to end, is powerful. As Goodman herself observes, “Growing up is the real adventure.” This is one you won’t want to miss.

There are Gothic tropes along with contemporary romance, rivalry, and murder – all in less than 300 pages. Read this one for sheer entertainment.

Three Thrillers By

CONTEMPORARY

SOUTHERN WRITERS:

The Resemblance

by Lauren Nossett (2022)

Nossett received her Ph. D. in German literature from the University of California, Davis, and a BA and MA from The University of Georgia. Having taught college German, she now writes full time, with this as her debut. The novel’s synopsis on the inside jacket is titled with the admonition “Never Betray the Brotherhood.” A fraternity brother steps off the curb at the Lumpkin Street crosswalk on UGA’s campus and is struck dead by an oncoming vehicle, the driver of which looks just like him.

Nossett’s heroine, Marlitt Kaplan, is a police detective; she happens to be

THE VILLA

by Rachel Hawkins (2023)

Hawkins was a high school English teacher in her native Alabama before becoming a selfproclaimed “popcorn” novelist, penning light mysteries/romances like The Ex Hex under the pseudonym Erin Sterling. Her previous The Wife Upstairs under her own name presented a modern version of Jane Eyre. In The Villa, Auburn University graduate Hawkins takes on the fabled 1816 gathering of Mary Godwin Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and Jon Polidou. Literary legend has it that during their dark and stormy stay at a villa in Switzerland, the hearthside telling of horror stories led to the later publications of Polidou’s The Vampyre and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The Washington Post hails The Villa as both “a moody labyrinth” and a “spooky,

All The Dangerous Things

by Stacy Willingham (2023)

Willingham earned a BA in magazine journalism at The University of Georgia and a MFA in writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She was a successful copywriter and brand strategist before turning to fiction with the 2022 publication of her international bestseller A Flicker in the Dark. Now a Charleston resident, Willingham sets her newest in Savannah. A Book of the Month selection, Dangerous Things is quickly becoming a bestseller too.

In the prologue, you learn that Isabel Drake is an insomniac, stricken sleepless when her son, Mason, was stolen from his crib in her and husband Ben’s Isle of Hope home one year ago. A former feature writer for a renowned regional magazine (think Garden & Gun), Isabel had left her career at Ben’s request when she became a mother. Ben, however, did not stick around when she was unwilling to accept the idea that their son is dead. She becomes a frequent personality on the murder podcast circuit, willingly putting herself at risk to find the truth about what really happened to Mason. That mystery, and several others regarding her past, unfold in just over 300 fast-turning pages. Fans of modern crime stories will recognize the grim fascination with mothers and lost children, but ultimately, this story isn’t as dark as it might be.

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